European veterans of GitLab and Unbabel secure $11 million seed funding for Remote, an HR tech platform

Remote, a fully distributed HR tech startup with Dutch and Portuguese founders, has raised $11 million in seed funding to expand into 40 new international markets. The round was led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures, General Catalyst, Liquid2, INKEF Ventures, Remote First Capital, plus angel investors from GitLab and HackerOne.

The startup is led by two co-founders with technology chops: CTO Marcelo Lebre was VP of Engineering at Unbabel, and CEO Job van der Voort was one of the first five employees at GitLab, ending his time there as VP of Product. Though both are based in Lisbon, the company was legally founded in San Francisco. “Marcelo and I worked at globally distributed companies before starting Remote, and we saw a massive opportunity in simplifying global payroll and compliance through technology, and by building an innovative global infrastructure,” said van der Voort.

The platform is designed to help companies hire and onboard remote employees anywhere, handling global payroll, taxes, compliance, and employee benefits. There’s also a job board, where users can post, or apply to, open positions at companies around the world. "Over the past few years we’ve seen a once in a generational shift to remote work, but companies very quickly realize how complex, difficult, and time consuming it is to actually employ people in different countries," says Villi Iltchev, partner at the lead investing firm. "Solving this problem globally and making it possible to employ anybody in any country is extremely powerful." In a press release, the HR tech startup claims its true differentiator is that it owns a global infrastructure and therefore doesn’t need to rely on third parties. "Running our own global infrastructure means that we can be faster, more reliable and flexible,” van der Voort explained.

The hefty seed funding will help expand Remote’s onboarding platform and extend coverage to forty new markets by the end of 2020, including Canada, Germany, the United States and France.

Photo: Co-founders Marcelo Lebre and Job van der Voort, working remotely

This story has been updated to reflect that Job van der Voort used to work at GitLab, not GitHub as it stated initially.