Greycroft leads Series A funding in HR-tech startup Leena AI

By Bruhadeeswaran R

  • 03 Nov 2020
Credit: 123RF.com

Leena AI, a human resources technology startup, said Tuesday it has raised $8 million (about Rs 59.6 crore) in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Greycroft Partners.

The round takes the total amount of funds the company has raised so far to $10 million, Leena AI said in a statement. The company, which is a Y Combinator graduate, had secured $2 million in seed funding in 2018.

The new funding round included personal investments from Greycroft chairman Alan Patricof, former Deloitte Consulting chairman Jim Moffatt, Icertis founder Samir Bodas and Adam Miller, founder of Cornerstone OnDemand.

Mark Terbeek, partner at Greycroft, will join Leena AI’s board as part of the transaction.

Patricof, a former top executive at Apax Partners, founded Greycroft in 2006. The VC firm has offices in New York and Los Angeles. In India, Greycroft has backed cloud-based enterprise software company Icertis in multiple rounds starting in 2015.

Leena AI said it will use the funding towards product enhancement, hire people and rope in more customers.

“Our intention is to cover all major workflows and help modernize all the legacy workflows and processes throughout the employee lifecycle with the help of AI,” it said.

The company said it has increased the number of its employees to 75 from 25 people in the past nine months. It plans to hire more people across sales, marketing, engineering and business development functions.

The company has also brought on board 100 enterprise customers in 2020. These include multinational companies LafargeHolcim, Abbott, The Coca-Cola Company, AirAsia, Vodafone and Sony Pictures. During this period the company’s revenue jumped 350%, it said, without elaborating.

There are a few startups operating in the human resources and performance management space in the country.

Last month, Zimyo Consulting Pvt. Ltd, which operates an eponymous human resources-technology startup, raised $1.5 million in a seed funding round.

Earlier this year, homegrown private equity firm WestBridge Capital led a $30 million round of investment in US-based human resources technology company Phenom People Inc.

In August last year, Talview Inc. raised $6.75 million in a Series A round of funding from Storm Ventures, Inventus Capital, Eileses Capital and Emergent Ventures.