MOVE Guides Announces $8.2 Million Series A Funding from New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Notion Capital

LONDON, October 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

MOVE Guides announced today that it has closed $8.2 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Existing investor Notion Capital also participated in the round. MOVE Guides has grown more than 10x in the last 12 months, and is working with companies like SurveyMonkey and lululemon athletica to deliver employee mobility across more than 150 locations around the world.

"Over the next 3-5 years, 75% of companies expect to increase their volume of mobile employees-yet just 2% consider their global mobility function world-class today," said MOVE Guides' Founder Brynne Herbert. "Talent mobility is a huge pain point for HR departments, and our market leading Talent Mobility Cloud is their answer."

MOVE Guides' Talent Mobility Cloud is the leading cloud solution for the $15bn talent mobility industry, an emerging area of HR that involves moving talent around the world for new jobs, relocations, projects and expatriate assignments. Companies spend $150bn annually moving talent, and the process is mired with complex and time-consuming processes, high compliance burdens when operating across many countries, and challenges to delivering a great employee experience.

Individual investors Andy Leaver (ex-VP EMEA and APAC, Workday) and David Windley (ex-CHRO Yahoo!) also participated in the round, signalling a growing interest in talent mobility within the broader HR space.

"The shift from on-premise to cloud in enterprise software has long been a core focus for NEA, with investments in category-defining companies like Salesforce.com, WebEx and Workday," said NEA partner Ravi Viswanathan, who joins Notion Capital partner Jos White on the MOVE Guides' Board. "Talent mobility management is a large and growing market that's ripe for disruption, and we're excited to partner with MOVE Guides as they seize that opportunity and deliver a mobility solution that enables companies to be more efficient, reduce costs, and increase employee satisfaction."  

"MOVE Guides is transforming talent mobility with its market-leading software-as-a-service platform and, at the same time, meeting the expectations of a new generation of employees," said Jos White, Partner at Notion Capital. "We believe they have what it takes to disrupt their industry and build a very big business."

The Talent Mobility Cloud brings together companies, employees and global vendors (shipping, real estate, immigration, tax and more) to enable talent mobility both for companies who traditionally outsourced their mobility programs and for those who manage it with in-house teams. At outsourced programs, MOVE Guides replaces traditional incumbents, like Cartus and SIRVA, at just a fraction of the cost. MOVE Guides pairs the Talent Mobility Cloud with support for employees from their dedicated MOVE Advocate team. The company has proven its technology and service to deliver up to 30% more efficiency for HR teams and 99% employee satisfaction.

"With MOVE Guides, we now have decision quality information. The experience of our people has improved from our previous provider," said Susan Gelinas, Director of Reward at lululemon athletica.

Alongside the funding round, MOVE Guides announced expansion into Hong Kong and the hiring of Alex Wood as VP, Global Sales (ex-Complinet and Workshare).

MOVE Guides was founded in 2011 after Brynne Herbert's personal experience working abroad as an investment banker. Today, MOVE Guides operates across more than 150 locations with offices in London, New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong. The company has raised more than $10 million dollars to date.

About MOVE Guides 

MOVE Guides makes it easy for companies, governments, universities and other institutions to move their talent around the world. Our award-winning Talent Mobility Cloud combines employee move planning, company mobility management and global vendors across more than 150 locations, to deliver dramatically improved employee experience and efficiencies. Visit our website at http://www.moveguides.com and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About NEA 

New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) partners with entrepreneurs to build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With more than $13 billion in committed capital, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company's lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record includes more than 195 portfolio company IPOs and more than 320 acquisitions. For additional information, visit http://www.nea.com.

About Notion Capital 

Notion is an entrepreneur-backed venture capital firm focused on high potential businesses in the Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) markets. The Notion team has unique expertise and experience in the Cloud Computing market having founded, built and exited two highly successful businesses in the space - Star and MessageLabs. Companies within Notion's portfolio include Adbrain, Brightpearl, Duedil, eSellerPro, NewVoiceMedia, The Currency Cloud and Tradeshift. For more information go to: http://www.notioncapital.com