Omnipresent Raises $2M Seed Funding Within Six Weeks During COVID-19 Pandemic to Provide a Solution for the Remote Work Revolution

‍Providing an answer to the remote working revolution
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Remote work is here to stay. Even before Covid-19, flexible and remote working was already becoming commonplace in modern companies looking to attract the best global talent. The Covid-19 pandemic has necessitated this trend but by embracing remote employment, many companies are risking non-compliance with international labour laws and regulations. 

We have addressed this challenge by building a tech-enabled platform that handles all of the complexity of international employment for clients and offering them and their remote workers a simplified, cost effective and legally compliant employment solution. 

Fundraising news

We have raised $2m in a seed round led by Playfair Capital and Episode 1. The fundraise was closed within six  weeks during the height of the pandemic with participation from investors including Entrepreneur First, Truesight Ventures, Charlie Songhurst, Andrew Goodman, Akash Gupta, Srin Madipalli and Ian Hogarth.

This financing will allow us to even better serve our clients internationally distributed teams by extending our coverage to 80 markets by the end of 2020,  enabling the us to meet the explosion in demand from companies wanting to employ their interjurisdictional remote workers in a legally compliant and cost effective manner.

“Remote work is one of the great equalisers of our time,” said Matt Wilson, our co-founder and Co-CEO. “It allows people to secure employment opportunities from the best companies around the world, no matter where they were born or where they live. Yet, at a time when remote work is exploding, most companies are finding it operationally too complex, as well as prohibitively costly, to employ workers internationally. At Omnipresent, we’re centralising this complexity for our clients and offering them, and their remote workers, a simplified, cost effective and legally compliant employment experience.”

The demand from employees for remote positions has exploded. Employers, competing for any possible advantage in their market, are starting to understand the massive benefit of expanding the labour market from which they are willing to recruit talent, from local to global. “The most ambitious companies in the world need no longer be constrained by the available local talent,” said Dr Guenther Eisinger, our co-founder and Co-CEO. “Covid-19 has shed light on the opportunity for a new way of working and businesses have to adapt to it or face extinction.”

However, global employment brings with it significant challenges. First are the legal risks: Permanent establishment, transfer pricing, employers’ liability are just a few traps Omnipresent’s clients have fallen into before coming to the company for help. 

With a network of legal entities across the world, coupled with an automation-focused tech platform, we cutting away the complexity and cost of global employment by offering what we refer to as “the premium global employment-as-a-service offering on the market.”

“We take care of the boring and often complex stuff, so you and your team can focus on executing your business plans.”

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Investor comments

Joe Thornton, who led the deal on behalf of Playfair Capital, said: “Change always has a transaction cost. For business executives, the prospect of shifting from a collocated office to a fully distributed workforce was previously viewed as too risky a change, even though the evidence has long supported the superiority of remote workforces. And then suddenly, earlier this year, the decision was taken for every business executive as the entire knowledge economy globally was forced into remote working due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.” 

Carina Namih, General Partner at Episode 1 who co-led the deal, said: “I’ve experienced these challenges firsthand as the CEO of a business with my team spread across several jurisdictions. Now as a board member of several rapidly growing businesses, I see management grappling with these challenges time and again. Omnipresent’s solution is sorely needed.”

About our Founders

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Matthew Wilson

Co-CEO & Co-founder

Matthew Wilson studied Theoretical Physics in Oxford. He then worked as a software engineer and product manager. At 23, Matt turned down a full MBA scholarship to co-found a seed funded SaaS company where he led Product, Tech and Ops. Frustrated by his experience of dealing with international bureaucracy, Matthew decided to join Entrepreneur First, a deep tech accelerator, to co-found Omnipresent Group with Guenther Eisinger.

Guenther Eisinger

Co-CEO & Co-founder

Guenther holds three Master’s Degrees and a PhD. He served for the Austrian Special Forces, rising to Major leading combat units in Afghanistan, Africa and Eastern Europe. He then worked in international crisis management and started a company developing software to enable organisations to operate in complex environments worldwide. He joined Entrepreneur First, a deep tech accelerator in London to start Omnipresent.