(Reuters) – Swile has raised additional an $200 million in a capital increase backed by Japan’s Softbank, aiming at expanding its business internationally and beyond corporate benefits services, the French startup said on Monday.
Through this capital increase, Swile, which provides electronic meal vouchers and other employee benefits to companies such as Carrefour, Spotify and Airbnb, joined the country’s growing ranks of tech unicorns or startups valued at $1 billion or more.
The company, which counts Eurazeo, Index Ventures, and bpifrance among its investors, said it had gained a 13% share in the corporate benefits market since its launch four years ago in southern French region of Occitania.
It had already raised 115 million euros in total in previous three funding rounds, it said, while this one will see Michel Combes, chairman of Softbank International Group and former chairman of mobile companies Alcatel-Lucent and SFR-Numericable, joining the board.
Swile, which ranked second on LinkedIn France’s list of most attractive startups work- and investment-wise in 2021, also plans to double its workforce by hiring 500 employees by the end of 2022 and aims to release its team building and communications app soon.
(Reporting by Dagmarah Mackos in Gdansk, Editing by Louise Heavens)
