Swile, a France-based developer of employee benefits management technology, raised $200m on Monday in a series D round led by telecommunications and internet group SoftBank at a valuation exceeding $1bn.
The state-owned BPIfrance’s took part in the round through its BPIfrance Large Ventures fund, filling it out alongside private equity firm Eurazeo and venture capital firms Index Ventures and Headline.
Founded in 2018 as Lunchr, Swile provides a card and app that can manage all benefits employees within a company, including mobility and vouchers for meal and gifts. The app has been in beta testing for the past year and is set to launch soon.
Michel Combes, chairman of Softbank International Group, is taking a board seat at Swile in conjunction with the round, which the company said made it the second fastest tech startup to reach unicorn status in France.
The company will use the capital to further develop its platform, double its workforce to 1,000 and expand internationally, having earlier this year acquired Brazil-based startup Vee Beneficios as it readies to move deeper into Latin America.
Index Ventures led Swile’s $78.7m series C round which included BPIfrance and Idinvest Partners, in June 2019. Index led a $34m series B round four months earlier with backing from Kima Ventures, Idinvest and Daphni.
The company had previously secured a total of $17.5m between its seed round and a series A backed by Idinvest and Daphni, with the rounds being disclosed together in 2018.
Loïc Soubeyrand, chief executive of Swile, said: “With this $200m round of funding, we have acquired additional resources and a first-class partner to continue to disrupt established models and bring our ambitious mission to life: creating a fulfilling world of work.”
