Investment Poises HR Software Company For Significant Growth
22 February 2016
Natural HR Limited, an early stage software business with a comprehensive cloud based HR software solution, has received funding from Midven, Birmingham City Council and several business angels.
The company, based in Birmingham, was set up by an HR practitioner and an IT specialist – Sarah and Jason Dowzell.
In Sarah’s experience she had found that traditional HR software wasn’t meeting the needs of businesses that wanted a system to record all their HR information. The company’s research highlighted that all businesses need a solution that is easy to access and use day in day out, has all the features of the more established and expensive software offerings but without the high cost.
Jason set about building such a system ensuring that it could scale as the users own business grows and requires additional functionality. All along Natural HR has stuck to the principle of a system that is easy to deploy with ‘excellent customer support’ to ensure happy paying customers. This ethos and approach has led to a thriving new start business with bags of potential.
When asked about why she started the company Sarah said: “I wanted to offer a solution which all companies, regardless of size, would find extremely useful, want to use and are prepared to pay for. Having built the first versions of the system we quickly found that our customers spanned a wide spectrum from small businesses, medium sized ones and to our surprise even the larger ones started using it – we knew we were on to a winner.”
Midven is a leading venture capital fund manager that provides investment for small, high-growth businesses across a range of sectors in the West Midlands. Through its Early Advantage fund, Midven has invested £100,000 in Natural HR; this is in addition to the investment from Birmingham City Council and a number of supportive private investors.
Midven Investment Director Gio Finocchio said: “When I first came across Natural HR, I was impressed that such an early stage company had already managed to build a comprehensive piece of HR software and also had a significant user base. Over the period of time that we and the co-investors tracked the company and conducted our due diligence, the company continued to grow its customer base in spite of operating in a competitive sector. This proved that the company has a solution which is required and valued in the marketplace. Natural HR just needed the funding to expand its team and capitalise on the opportunity. Now that we have concluded the investment, I’m looking forward to seeing this one really take off.”
About Natural HR Limited
Natural HR offers a complete end to end people management solution for small to medium businesses in a single, fully integrated yet simple to use platform.
Natural HR has been offering cloud HR software since 2010. Initially offered as free HR software and gaining over 13,500 signups across 191 countries, in 2014 they launched their premium offerings and have seen sales grow month on month.
Photo: Sarah and Jason Dowzell.