SWILE (formerly: Lunchr) is a French app-based company that focuses on improving the employee experience. Among others, the platform offers meal vouchers, gift vouchers, mobility vouchers, and business travel solutions.
In March 2020, it was renamed SWILE and entered the lunch break and meal voucher market.
History
The company was founded as Lunchr by Loïc Soubeyrand in 2016. Originally, Lunchr was an app for pre-ordering lunch on the spot or to go.
In January 2017, the company raised €2.5 million in seed funding from Daphni.
In 2018, the company raised €11 million (
series A
A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...
) from Idinvest, followed by another €30 million in February 2019 (
series B
A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...
), notably from
Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with headquarters in both San Francisco and London. It invests primarily in tech companies.
History
Index Ventures has its origins in a Switzerland, Swiss bond (finance), bond-trading firm cal ...
and Kima Ventures.
In January 2020, Lunchr became one of the first startups to join the
French Tech
French Tech is an accreditation awarded to French cities recognized for their startup ecosystem. It is also a name used by technologically innovative French businesses throughout the world.
Convinced by the necessity to promote the emergence of ...
120.
A few months later, in March, Lunchr diversified its services, adding team life management tools and changing its brand name to Swile.
In June 2020, the company raised €70 million more in a new round of financing (Series C) from the same investors and the BPI.
In November 2020, Swile acquired Briq, a startup specializing in employee engagement.
In January 2021, Swile won a tender with
Carrefour
Carrefour Group, S.A. (, ), is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, Essonne, Massy, France. It operates a chain of hypermarkets, grocery stores and convenience stores. By 2024, the group had 14,000 ...
and distributed 62,000 Swile cards to its employees.
In early October 2021, a new $200 million (€175 million) fundraising round, in which Japanese Softbank joined other investors, allowed Swile to capitalize on $1 billion. President
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Ministry of Economy and Finance (France), Minister of Economics, Industr ...
cited the company as "a further proof that FrenchTech is at the forefront internationally."
In May 2022, the company acquired the travel management start-up Okarito for €6 million.
Overview
Swile operates in two countries (France and Brazil) and has a total of 1000 employees, 5.5 million users and 85,000 corporate customers, including Carrefour, Le Monde, JCDECAUX, PSG, Airbnb, Spotify, Red Bull, and TikTok in the private sector, as well as numerous local authorities and ministerial references in the public sector.
[{{Cite web , title=Loïc Soubeyrand , url=https://laref.org/intervenants/loic-soubeyrand/ , access-date=2023-05-02 , language=fr-FR]
References
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Application software