UK startup Omnipresent raises $2m seed funding to provide solution for remote work revolution

UK startup Omnipresent Group has 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.

The financing will be used to extend Omnipresent’s coverage to 80 markets by the end of 2020,  enabling the company to meet the explosion in demand from companies wanting to employ their interjurisdictional remote workers in a legally compliant and cost effective manner.

Matt Wilson, Omnipresent co-founder and Co-CEO said: “Remote work is one of the great equalisers of our time. 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.

Guenther Eisinger, Omnipresent co-founder and Co-CEO said: “The most ambitious companies in the world need no longer be constrained by the available local talent. 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, Omnipresent is centralising the complexity and cost of global employment by offering what Wilson refers to as “the premium global employment-as-a-service offering on the market.”

Joe Thornton, who leads 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.”

www.omnipresent.group