German SaaS training platform how.fm, which enables warehouse managers to onboard, upskill, and support their operators every day, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Join Capital joined by previous investors Kindred Capital (that invested in Paddle and Zora Labs) and Capnamic Ventures. Other investors in the round include ex-Amazon UK CEO, Christopher North; CEO of Berlin-based logistics service, Forto, Michael Wax; and angel investments from Allegro CEO Francois Nuyts and business angel Andrej Henkler.
Growth plans ahead
The company will use the funding to recruit across the business, grow its commercial teams in Cologne and London. Also, it has plans to further expand into the manufacturing, retail and food industries.
Andreas Kwiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of how.fm, said, “Employers in warehousing and distribution must undertake a huge effort when hiring, training and ensuring compliance for each employee, in an industry that sees exceptionally high levels of staff turnover. As online shopping and e-commerce grow, increasing competition for efficient staff will cost businesses a great deal. how.fm aims to streamline the process of repetitive staff onboarding and management – in each individual employee’s native language. This allows senior staff to focus on the most valuable areas of the business.”
Andreas Andersson, EMEA Safety Lead at Ingram Micro said, “how.fm helps us overcome the language barriers our business faces every day. The CMS system allows us to quickly set up training material to use for anyone in our facilities, regardless of employment type or country of origin. The fact that we can test the knowledge of each trainee helps us a lot on the compliance part as well. An excellent system that is easy to implement, set up and then use.”
Appoints new board member
As part of the investment round, Join Capital Partner, Jan Borgstädt will join the how.fm board.
Jan Borgstädt said, “The logistics industry is under immense pressure to deal with the constant increase in e-commerce, and most logistics contractors have very antiquated onboarding processes. Andreas and his team impressed us with a very short proof-of-value when we introduced them to 4 prospective customers in our network. We liked the execution power that drives the founders as well as their positive resonance within Join’s network, who, within minutes, unanimously recognized the potential added value of how.fm in their day-to-day logistics operations.”
Digitises training for warehouse operators
how.fm was launched in 2019 by serial entrepreneurs Andreas Kwiatkowski and Farhoud Cheraghi in Cologne. It transforms onboarding and support of manual labour by disseminating knowledge and optimising processes across enterprises.
how.fm offers off-the-job training which ensures complete compliance, and has reduced churn rate by 5% across its client base. The company also provides on-the-job training, which has reduced ramp time by 15%, increased output quality by 30%, and live support leading to reduced interruptions by 50%.
Current clients of how.fm include leading logistics professionals such as Kühne + Nagel and Ingram Micro. Further, brand names such as Bloom & Wild, Fressnapf and many more across Europe. They use how.fm to generate policies and process training and train their workers in over 30 different languages.
The company has the ability to solve key high-growth high-turnover operational problems, including fixing labour shortages. It also supports scalability by enabling rapid growth, and helps companies to adapt to seasonality and increasing response time by ensuring effective onboarding, training of their workers. With the option for live support, it enables warehouses to stay on top of compliance while achieving operational excellence as a service.
Already, it is bridging the gap between high growth and high turnover within the logistics industry. With its multi-lingual training platform, it has enabled warehouses to unlock the global talent pool and scale rapidly. It is a boon for warehouse managers as they no longer need to worry about onboarding, training and compliance.
