Boundless raises €2.5M to grow its global hiring platform

Companies have realized there is no longer a need for them to hire staff who live locally.

But hiring from anywhere comes with its own challenges, mainly that every country has different employment law and tax regulations.

This is where HR tech comes in. For instance, Dublin-headquartered startup Boundless, which helps companies hire and retain talent compliantly across the world, has now closed a €2.5 million Seed round. The investment was led by diversity-focused Ada Ventures and San Francisco-based FYRFLY Venture Partners.

The company is particularly noteworthy as it is led by a female CEO and female CTO duo: Dee Coakley and Emily Castles. The third member of the leadership team is CSO Eamon Leonard.

Credit: Boundless.

Coakley noted: “From failing to register workers in the proper jurisdiction through to incorrectly hiring people as contractors to perform permanent roles, these worries are being felt across the entire leadership team – from the CFO and Head of Legal to the COO and Head of HR/People Ops.

“Employment laws, tax codes and statutory benefits all differ from country to country. Cultural norms around working also vary significantly.

“Overlooking or misunderstanding these norms only makes it more challenging to recruit and retain talent.”

Founded in 2019, Boundless aims to take the compliance and administrative headache out of hiring distributed teams across the world.

To do this, the startup combines its global remote hiring platform with deep local market and operational expertise in the 16 countries across four continents it currently operates in. As a result of this funding, Boundless aims to expand to cover 35 countries by the end of the year. It also plans to significantly grow its 19-person team, which is itself distributed across eight countries.

In addition to focusing on hiring, Boundless also helps companies provide benefits and opportunities to these distributed teams.

For example, Boundless has helped tech startup Stark to ensure all of its global team members in Canada, Ireland, Portugal and the UK have equal benefits offerings.

Ada Ventures founding partner Matt Penneycard noted: “More than half of our current portfolio has at least one female founder, so it’s fantastic to back another female-led company that has the potential to become a global leader.

“The Boundless team is one of the most customer-centric we’ve ever worked with – everything they do is about building and delivering the best possible customer experience.

“So, while this is undoubtedly a hot sector with well-funded and talented competitors, we believe Boundless has the most robust approach for building a very large business over the long term.”

Other distributed team and remote hiring companies that have raised funding recently include Oyster and Deel.