TechWolf's series B - Building the Future of HR

Six years ago, Jeroen, Andreas, and I won our first coding competition. As students at the time, we beat people with years of experience in the AI field, even some of our professors. That was the moment we knew: "This team is magical."

If somebody had told me back then that TechWolf would go on to raise over +50M in total and sign up global enterprises at a record pace, I would've never believed you.

The past 6 years have been quite the journey indeed. Our team of wolves now has over 80 people, with offices in Ghent, London, and, in two months, New York. This wolfpack is comprised of some of the most capable and kindhearted people you'll ever meet.

This phenomenal team has allowed us to serve some of the world's largest employers—organisations that genuinely want the best for their people and HR Leaders who want to see all their employees flourish at work.?

Today, we've completed step 1 in helping organisations transition to a skills-based way of working. We have a repeatable way of getting global organisations access to the skills data of every employee. For the first time ever, an accurate and consistent skills map of the entire company is accessible in a matter of weeks.?

However, data is just… data. Without insight or action, it's useless. This is the next frontier for us and our customers. How do you leverage this data to make workforce decisions, resource allocation decisions, or strategic decisions??

Looking at the strides we're making with our most innovative customers, one thing is for sure: how HR is done will change. Forever.?

This won't happen overnight, and our mission is far from finished. There is a seismic shift happening as we speak, as HR is going through three massive transformations at the same time:

1. Moving from jobs to skills as a framework for managing talent
2. Incorporating data into HR decision-making
3. Transitioning from an administrative to a strategic department

TechWolf exists at the intersection of these three transformations. That is incredibly exciting but also incredibly daunting.?

That is what this new investment is all about. It's fuel to figure out these next bits. And it's about proving that TechWolf will be the go-to partner for the HR leader of the future.

With this round, we're bringing in three core capabilities needed to execute our ambition—a three-legged stool that is the foundation for a generational software company.

• AI Experience through the investments of AI leaders of Meta, Google DeepMind, and others. We're not just an HR-tech company—we're an AI company. With the brightest AI brains on board, we will strengthen our position as the best AI player in the HR technology market.

• Enterprise Software Experience with investments by some of the most renowned names and operators in venture capital: Felix Capital, 20VC, Notion Capital and Fortino Capital. With this team of investors, I believe we have brought in the expertise to become one of the few global software companies founded in Europe.

• HR & HR-tech Experience through the investments of SAP, Workday & ServiceNow as industry titans, SemperVirens & Acadian Ventures as deep HR-technology experts, and Diane Gherson (IBM's former CHRO) joining our board.?

As we've said many times... the best is yet to come.

Reflecting on the Founder Journey (so far)

After spending 10 beautiful years in Ghent, I'll move to NYC to help TechWolf capture the biggest software market.

When I reflect on the past years, only deep gratitude is appropriate, as my story could've turned out quite differently.

Entrepreneurship was never in my vocabulary growing up.?Not because I didn't want to but because our family lived paycheck to paycheck for a long time. In a situation like that, you don't think about changing the world; you think about not being poor.

Sometimes, you get lucky in life. My luck came from meeting Andreas and Jeroen in university, my two incredible co-founders. These exceptional people, whom I can call my best friends, changed my entire life trajectory. They helped me realise my full potential and flourish at work.

That's why I am so proud that we created the TechWolf Foundation, to which all of TechWolf's shareholders have agreed to commit 3% of all shares. It will be a vehicle for giving back to the ecosystem and supporting founders from underrepresented backgrounds.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who believed in us: the customers, partners, advisors, analysts, mentors, and investors who saw something in us, maybe even before we saw it ourselves. We could not have done this without them.

And now... back to work. :-)