A bit more about Kombo's Series A

Solving our ecosystem integration friction.

Jason posted about Kombo’s Series A over on the Acadian website, and there are more details over on the Kombo site. Kombo has raised a $25M Series A round led by Volition Capital along with continued support from us, 468 Capital, and Y Combinator. Early investors include Robin Capital (Robin is an excellent spotter of early deals, we are co-investors at Penzilla). Jens Bender has been instrumental too.

Alex, the CEO and co-founder had this to say.

Here’s where we’re headed:

AI is speeding up software change, which is increasing the number of systems companies run across recruiting, HR, payroll, and IT. That is why we believe interoperability is becoming the defining problem of the workforce ecosystem.

We invested in their seed round a couple of years back. Here is the background to our earlier investment decision. Weirdly today is also a no posts for ages and then 2 in day, day.

Since then, Alex and the team have delivered on that early promise brilliantly. The GTM team is arguably the best in the portfolio. I’ve learnt so much from seeing how Madalina and Max operate. The product quality and velocity is world class too.

Other than the company performance, another factor that made us double on Kombo has been the feedback we get from the market, either from our portfolio companies or when founders pitch me. I consistently hear that Kombo’s customer service is remarkable.

A company is more than just a product. Kombo’s attention to all the little details is profoundly good. The team has grown significantly, but the founders remain obsessed about hiring the best. They have recently expanded to the US, based in Brooklyn, and they are hiring.

I remain fascinated by the work tech ecosystem, and how it evolves. How value is created and captured in our ecosystem is changing, as we move from CRUD SaaS as the dominant design to something else. The SaaS and AI-Native vendors that thrive will share at least one thing in common, robust, consistent integrations. I can bore for Germany on ecosystems theory. We are going to be in a messy place for a long time to come, established incumbents, DIY, AI-Native, first and second generation SaaS. Making these work together will take so much more than MCP fairy dust, but that’s useful.

A couple of years ago I commented that AI will mean that companies will have more HR systems, not fewer. Kombo is in the right place, with the right product, and the right team to empower these integrations at massive scale. There is some nifty new stuff in the lab too.

Alex said it best

We sit at the center of the interoperability problem, providing the infrastructure layer for the flow of all people data — from hire to retire.

Alex and Clemens asked me to make a video about why we invested, and we are founder friendly VCs, here it is.

It has been a joy to invest and support Kombo so far, and I can’t wait for this next stage of their journey.

Goah, I forgot to add a song. It has to be Hier Kommt Alex. From the Toten Hosen. My favourite punk band.