Why we invested in clockin

Published on September 30, 2025

We are excited to partner with the German-based startup clockin as co-lead investor in their Series A financing round. clockin is on a mission to help digitize the deskless workforce.

Small businesses are eager to move on from fax machines and spreadsheets

Traditionally, a large share of VC funding has gone to software vendors targeting large enterprises. The reasons are clear: large annual contract values and strong customer lock-in. In recent years, SaaS success stories have increasingly trickled down to medium-sized businesses, which are under constant pressure to embrace digital transformation – or risk being left behind. However, the largest group, small “deskless” businesses, has largely been excluded from the fruits of digital progress. By number of organizations, small and micro businesses make up 99% of the EU economy; even measured by number of employees, they represent around 50%. As the backbone of Europe’s economy, most of these companies still rely on pen, paper, and spreadsheets. For them, efficiency gains through digitization are often more aspiration than reality.

clockin enables digitization through one adaptable product …

clockin began in 2018 with a focus on time-tracking software and quickly gained a deep understanding of the challenges small businesses are facing. From there, they expanded their product suite to include adjacent features such as staff- and project management. For many of their customers, clockin is the first piece of administrative software they ever adopt. The core thesis is simple: small businesses across industries face remarkably similar challenges, which can be solved by one adaptable product. clockin’s platform adjusts automatically to the specific needs of a business during a low-touch onboarding process, based on their learnings from more than 5,000 active customers.

… and has cracked the code to address them efficiently

While an HR software with time- and project tracking features itself is not unique, clockin has figured out a way to efficiently reach and sign up these small businesses in a way competitors have not. Their unique go-to-market approach, combined with the founding team’s strong execution-driven mindset, impressed and convinced us to invest. We believe clockin has the potential to emerge as a future European leader in HR software for SMBs.