Higher — Investor Deck · Series A

02 / 14

The shift

HR is being rebuilt for the first time in twenty years.

Workday won the last cycle by digitising paperwork. The next cycle is owned by whoever rebuilds hiring and development around AI — under European rules, with full explainability. That window is open right now.

The world we're leaving

Stitched HR stacks. Quarterly reviews. Black-box scoring.

5–9 vendors per HR team. Workday + Greenhouse + HireVue + Culture Amp + Lattice + a dozen integrations none of which talk to each other cleanly.

AI bolted on top of legacy schemas. Facial-recognition scoring. CNIL injunctions. EU procurement rejections.

Annual reviews everyone dreads. Engagement surveys read once. Pulse data that goes nowhere.

The world we're building

One ecosystem. One audit log. AI the works council can sign off on.

Full lifecycle — from first application to the day someone leaves. One data model. One source of truth.

Fairness by architecture — protected variables locked at the schema level. Every score logged. Every algorithm auditable.

Continuous, not episodic — quarterly AI dialogues replace annual reviews. Pulse signals that trigger real intervention.

03 / 14

The AI thesis

No human screening team can do this work — at this volume, with this consistency.

A senior recruiter screens roughly 200 applicants per role over two weeks. Higher screens 200 in 90 minutes, with deeper signal, full audit trails, and zero fatigue. Not faster humans. A different category of operation.

Capability

A senior human recruiter

Higher

Throughput
candidates · single role · day one

~40 CVs/day · 6 minutes per profile · attention drops after lunch

2,400 CVs/hour · forensic document check + skills extraction + initial score + flag triage in parallel

Consistency

Decision varies by mood, time of day, recency of last hire. Studies show same CV scored ±15 points by same recruiter on different days.

Zero variance. Same input · same output · always. Every score logged with reasoning, traceable to the question that produced it.

Document verification

Eyeballs the diploma. Maybe Googles the company. Misses fabricated degrees regularly — industry baseline ~40% of CVs contain at least one inaccuracy.

Forensic check on every document. University registry cross-reference, employer reference automation, watermark + metadata analysis. Catches the lies a human misses.

Bias

Cannot un-see the photo, the name, the school, the postcode. Even fully aware recruiters score differently on identical CVs with different names.

Protected variables locked at the schema. Gender, ethnicity, age, postcode, photo — mathematically excluded from any score. Verified by third-party fairness audit.

Coverage

Stops at hire. Reviews once a year. Engagement surveys land in someone's inbox.

Continuous. Same intelligence runs the quarterly dialogue, the pulse pattern recognition, the burnout early-warning. One model, one history, one person.

04 / 14

The solution

One platform, one data model, the whole employment lifecycle.

Nine modules sit on a single schema. The same person who applied is the same person who ramped, the same person whose pulse signals you read, the same person you might lose to a competitor in year three.

01

Apply

Application + document forensics

02

Assess

AI interview + behavioral profile

03

Decide

Match score + recommendation brief

04

Develop

Quarterly AI dialogues, growth plans

05

Listen

Pulse, sentiment, intervention triggers

01 · Apply

Application capture

Multi-channel intake (web, embedded SDK, social, partner). Auto-routing by role, geography, and works-council jurisdiction.

02 · Apply

Document forensics

Diplomas verified against issuing-body registries. Employer references via API. Metadata + watermark fraud detection. 98.7% accuracy in beta.

03 · Assess

AI interview

Async chat or voice. Role-calibrated questions. Adaptive follow-up. Candidates can ask the AI questions back. Available in 38 languages.

04 · Assess

Behavioral profile

Big-Five scoring across 200+ paired items. Anti-distortion checks. No facial scanning. Ever.

05 · Decide

Matching engine

Explainable scoring across hard skills, personality fit, culture alignment. Every score traceable to its source — no black box.

06 · Decide

Recommendation brief

A/B/C tiering. AI-synthesised one-page candidate summary — the one a hiring manager actually reads. Custom interview questions per finalist.

07 · Develop

Continuous development

Quarterly AI-led growth dialogues. One-page manager briefs. Replaces the annual review nobody likes.

08 · Listen

Pulse / org health

Three short prompts every six weeks. NLP-clustered themes. k≥5 anonymity threshold. Concrete intervention recommendations to leadership.

09 · All

Compliance core

GDPR, EU AI Act, works-council framework. SHA-256 audit log. Right-to-explanation built in. Cross-platform legal conscience for the whole platform.

05 / 14

Why we win

Nobody else covers the lifecycle and ships under EU rules.

The competitive landscape splits cleanly. American suites built for US labour law. European point tools that don't go end-to-end. AI hiring tools that face regulators in their largest target market. Higher is the only one in the middle.

Capability

Workday

HireVue

Personio

Higher

Full lifecycle (apply → develop → pulse)

HRIS-first; bolt-ons for the rest

Pre-hire only

SMB HRIS; thin AI

One platform end-to-end

EU AI Act + GDPR-native architecture

Compliance bolted on for export

CNIL has cited this product class by name

EU-built for HRIS but limited AI scope

Native architecture, not retrofit

Explainable scoring (no black box)

Skills-based; reasoning opaque

Black-box facial + voice scoring under regulatory pressure

Limited AI scoring

Every score traceable to its question

Candidate sees what employer sees

Asymmetric

Symmetric — same scores, both sides

Works-council readiness (Mitbestimmung, OR)

Case-by-case

Repeatedly rejected at OR review

HRIS only — limited scope

Mitbestimmungsfähig nach Architektur

Time-to-value

9–18 month implementation

4–8 weeks for pre-hire only

2–4 weeks (HRIS only)

Live in 14 days · full lifecycle

06 / 14

European market

€11.4B European HR-tech market — and the AI-native sub-segment is the fastest-growing slice.

Higher targets the intersection of recruitment-tech, HRIS, and AI-enabled employee experience — three categories converging into one buying decision.

TAM · Total addressable

European HR-tech market, 2026

€11.4B

SAM · Reachable in 5 years

EU companies 50–5,000 employees · AI-native lifecycle

€2.8B

SOM · Year-4 capture target

Wave-1–3 markets · 720 customers

€38M

Why now — the buying window

EU AI Act enforcement starts August 2026. Every incumbent suite is in retrofit mode. EU buyers actively seeking native-compliant alternatives. The procurement RFPs we've reviewed name "EU AI Act conformity" as a hard requirement in 8 of 10 cases.

Anchor TAM — recruitment + HRIS

EU recruitment software €3.4B · EU HRIS €4.6B · EU employee experience/listening €3.4B. Source: Gartner EU HR-tech report (March 2026), Sapient Insights.

Higher's beachhead

~87,000 EU companies with 50–5,000 employees in our wave-1–3 markets (SE/NL/DK/DE/FR). Average HR-tech spend per employee per year: €280–€420. Average tools per company: 5.7. Higher consolidates 4–6 of those.

Growth tailwind

EU HR-tech market growing 11.4% CAGR. AI-native sub-segment growing 28% CAGR. Nearly all net-new spend is going to AI-enabled tools.

07 / 14

Business model

Subscription is the core. PAYG is how we land mid-market and seasonal hirers.

Two pricing motions because we're going after two buying patterns simultaneously — the structured HR team that wants a year-long platform commitment, and the hiring manager who needs to fill 12 roles in March.

~88% of Year-4 ARR

Subscription · the core

Annual contract, per-employee pricing.

Buyer is HR leadership at a 250–5,000-employee company. They want one platform, one DPA, one audit log, and predictable spend. Annual ACV €18k–€150k blended.

Predictable revenue · annual prepay default · 92% retention target by Y3

Modules unlock together. No per-feature negotiation drag.

Net-revenue-retention 115%+ via Continuous Development upsell at Y2

EU procurement-friendly: framework agreements, sub-processor list, EU-only data residency

~12% of Year-4 ARR

Pay-as-you-go · the on-ramp

€49 per fully-processed candidate.

Buyer is a hiring manager at a smaller company, an agency, or a seasonal hirer (retail Q4, hospitality summer, agri seasons). No annual commit. Land here, expand to Subscription within 18 months.

Zero-commitment trial path · drives top-of-funnel volume cheaply

Embedded SDK partners (job boards, ATS, agencies) bill PAYG · revenue share with channel

Land at €5–15k/year · expand to €30k+ Subscription as hiring formalises

Self-serve sign-up · cuts CAC by 70% vs sales-led path

08 / 14

Pricing

Four subscription tiers. One pay-as-you-go price.

Tier pricing is per company-size band, not per-seat scaling. EU HR teams told us the per-seat model in HRIS competitors creates a perverse incentive — Higher charges for the platform, not for adding people to it.

Starter

Companies 1–50 employees

€299 / month

€3,588 / year · billed annually

Up to 6 active roles

Modules 01–06 (full hiring lifecycle)

500 candidate processes / month included

EU data residency · GDPR DPA

Email support · 24h SLA

First 90 days · self-serve sign-up

Most common

Growth

Companies 51–250 employees

€1,499 / month

€17,988 / year · billed annually

Unlimited active roles

Modules 01–07 · adds Continuous Development

2,500 candidate processes / month

SSO + role-based access

Slack/Teams integrations · CSM-led onboarding

Priority support · 4h SLA

~64% of new customers Y1

Scale

Companies 251–1,000 employees

€5,999 / month

€71,988 / year · annual prepay

All 9 modules · adds Pulse + Compliance Core

10,000 candidate processes / month

Workday / SAP / Personio integration

SOC 2 + ISO 27001 reports · custom DPA

Dedicated CSM · 1h SLA

Where we're winning enterprise hand-offs

Enterprise

Companies 1,000+ employees

€15k+ / month

Custom · framework agreements

Multi-tenant white-label SDK

Custom processing volume

Single-tenant deployment option

Mitbestimmungs-Audit support

White-glove onboarding · named technical lead

Volvo, IKEA Retail, KLM scale

Pay-as-you-go

Single-candidate processing · no contract · self-serve · best for seasonal hirers, agencies, embedded SDK partners

€49

per fully-processed candidate

09 / 14

Go-to-market

Sweden first. Three waves. €2.4M Year-1 marketing budget, weighted toward earned credibility.

We don't out-spend Workday. We out-message them in the markets where their US framing fails. Calibrated launch lines per geography, named anchor references per wave.

Wave 1 · Sweden

Q3 2026 — Q1 2027

🇸🇪Sweden

Built where the questions are hardest.

22

Anchor customers · target

€640k

Wave-1 ARR target

Wave 2 · NL · DK

Q1 — Q3 2027

🇳🇱Netherlands 🇩🇰Denmark

AI you can put in front of the OR.

38

Net-new customers · target

€1.4M

Wave-2 ARR added

Wave 3 · DE · FR

Q3 2027 — Q4 2028

🇩🇪Germany 🇫🇷France

Mitbestimmungsfähig nach Architektur.

214

Net-new customers · target

€11M

Wave-3 ARR added

Year-1 marketing allocation · €2.4M

We spend where credibility compounds.

Half the budget goes to earned and account-based motions. Pure performance marketing has terrible CAC against an enterprise SaaS in this category — every euro on Google Ads competes with Workday's media buyers.

Account-based · top 80 EU enterprises

Field sales, custom POCs, exec dinners

33%

€800k

Earned + PR + analyst

Sapient, Gartner, EU HR Tech press, podcast

21%

€500k

Events · sponsorships

UNLEASH Paris/Amsterdam, HR Tech Berlin, Web Summit

18%

€430k

Digital · content · SEO

EU AI Act content hub, /vs Workday pages, paid social

18%

€420k

Channel · partner enablement

SDK partners (job boards, agencies, ATS)

10%

€250k

Total Year-1 marketing

€2.4M

10 / 14

Revenue · ARR forecast

€1.4M → €38M ARR over four years.

Sweden anchor compounds into a five-market footprint. The mix shifts from Growth-tier SMB into Scale + Enterprise as the wave plan lands and the Continuous Development module drives expansion. NRR target 115%+.

Subscription ARR · core driver

NRR target 115%+ via Continuous Development upsell

Year

ARR

Customers

Blended ACV

Y1 · 2026/27

€1.4M

~50

€28k

Y2 · 2027/28

€5.8M

~150

€39k

Y3 · 2028/29

€16M

~370

€43k

Y4 · 2029/30

€38M

~720

€53k

Sales motion

ABM-led on top 80 enterprises
+ self-serve Growth tier

Wave plan compounding

Y2 NL/DK live
Y3 DE/FR launch

Mix shift

Y1 mostly Growth
Y4 dominant Scale + Enterprise

Net retention

115%+ via Continuous
Development module

11 / 14

Costs · headcount · unit economics

~120 people. €24M opex. EBITDA-positive in Y4.

AI handles the throughput; humans handle the trust. Engineering and customer success outweigh sales headcount because the product, not the rep, does the conversion. Infrastructure is the second-largest line — EU residency and inference are not free.

Function

Y4 headcount

% of total

Engineering · Product

Platform, AI/ML, SDK, integrations

40

33%

Sales · BD

EU AEs, BDRs, partnerships

35

29%

Customer Success

Onboarding, works council liaisons, support

20

17%

Marketing

Content, demand gen, events, brand

12

10%

G&A

Finance, legal/DPO, people, ops

13

11%

Total Y4 headcount

120

Personnel

€15.6M

120 FTE · €130k loaded blended

Infrastructure

€4.0M

AI inference, EU data residency, observability, security

S&M non-personnel

€3.0M

Demand gen, events, partner enablement, tools

G&A non-personnel

€1.5M

Legal/DPO, audit (SOC 2 / ISO 27001), facilities

Total Y4 opex

€24.1M

Gross margin 75% · GP €28.5M · EBITDA ≈ €4.5M (12%)

CAC payback

~14months

Blended; faster on Growth tier

LTV : CAC

4.2×

5-year horizon, 115% NRR

Gross margin

75%

Net of inference + EU residency

Magic number

1.1+

Sustainable growth-stage threshold

12 / 14

Enterprise value · Y4 exit envelope

€300–450M enterprise value at Y4 ARR.

EU HR-tech multiples sit at 6–10× revenue mature, 8–12× for high-growth category leaders. At €38M ARR with 130%+ growth and EU-native compliance moat, Higher prices into the upper band.

Y4 ARR

€38M

Enterprise value range

€300M — €450M

8× to 12× forward ARR · base case 10× = €380M

Bear · 8×

€304M

Mature SaaS multiple, no premium

Base case

10×

€380M

EU compliance moat + 130%+ growth

Bull · 12×

€456M

Category leader, strategic acquirer interest

European HR-tech reference points

Personio

Last private valuation €8.5B · €100M+ ARR

HiBob

Last valuation $2.4B · ~10× forward ARR

Lattice

$3B valuation · adjacent performance category

Bryq · Sapia · HireVue

Point-solution comps · 4–7× revenue band

Higher's lifecycle scope + EU AI-Act compliance moat positions above point-solution band, alongside platform comps.

13 / 14

Series A · April 2026

Raising €6M to compound the wave plan.

18-month runway to a Series-B trigger of €8–10M ARR. Capital deploys against the engineering moat first, the wave-2 commercial expansion second, and the trust infrastructure (SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / works-council templates) running through every line.

Series A

€6.0M

18-month runway · Series B trigger at €8–10M ARR

Use of funds

Engineering · Product

45%

Sales & Marketing

30%

Wave-2 expansion infra

15%

G&A · compliance · audit

10%

Milestones to Series B

Q4 · 2026

Sweden launch

First 20 paying tenants live

Q2 · 2027

Wave-2 live

NL + DK · 60+ tenants · SDK GA

Q4 · 2027

€5M ARR

SOC 2 Type II · ISO 27001

Q3 · 2028

Series B trigger

€8–10M ARR · DE/FR live

One ecosystem for the entire employee lifecycle.

HR is being rebuilt for the first time in twenty years.

Workday won the last cycle by digitising paperwork. The next cycle is owned by whoever rebuilds hiring and development around AI — under European rules, with full explainability. That window is open right now.

No human screening team can do this work — at this volume, with this consistency.

A senior recruiter screens roughly 200 applicants per role over two weeks. Higher screens 200 in 90 minutes, with deeper signal, full audit trails, and zero fatigue. Not faster humans. A different category of operation.

One platform, one data model, the whole employment lifecycle.

Nine modules sit on a single schema. The same person who applied is the same person who ramped, the same person whose pulse signals you read, the same person you might lose to a competitor in year three.

Nobody else covers the lifecycle and ships under EU rules.

The competitive landscape splits cleanly. American suites built for US labour law. European point tools that don't go end-to-end. AI hiring tools that face regulators in their largest target market. Higher is the only one in the middle.

€11.4B European HR-tech market — and the AI-native sub-segment is the fastest-growing slice.

Higher targets the intersection of recruitment-tech, HRIS, and AI-enabled employee experience — three categories converging into one buying decision.

Subscription is the core. PAYG is how we land mid-market and seasonal hirers.

Two pricing motions because we're going after two buying patterns simultaneously — the structured HR team that wants a year-long platform commitment, and the hiring manager who needs to fill 12 roles in March.

Four subscription tiers. One pay-as-you-go price.

Tier pricing is per company-size band, not per-seat scaling. EU HR teams told us the per-seat model in HRIS competitors creates a perverse incentive — Higher charges for the platform, not for adding people to it.

Sweden first. Three waves. €2.4M Year-1 marketing budget, weighted toward earned credibility.

We don't out-spend Workday. We out-message them in the markets where their US framing fails. Calibrated launch lines per geography, named anchor references per wave.

We spend where credibility compounds.

€1.4M → €38M ARR over four years.

Sweden anchor compounds into a five-market footprint. The mix shifts from Growth-tier SMB into Scale + Enterprise as the wave plan lands and the Continuous Development module drives expansion. NRR target 115%+.

~120 people. €24M opex. EBITDA-positive in Y4.

AI handles the throughput; humans handle the trust. Engineering and customer success outweigh sales headcount because the product, not the rep, does the conversion. Infrastructure is the second-largest line — EU residency and inference are not free.

€300–450M enterprise value at Y4 ARR.

EU HR-tech multiples sit at 6–10× revenue mature, 8–12× for high-growth category leaders. At €38M ARR with 130%+ growth and EU-native compliance moat, Higher prices into the upper band.

Raising €6M to compound the wave plan.

18-month runway to a Series-B trigger of €8–10M ARR. Capital deploys against the engineering moat first, the wave-2 commercial expansion second, and the trust infrastructure (SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / works-council templates) running through every line.

The EU is rewriting the rules of hiring.
The platform that the works council can sign off wins the decade.

One ecosystem for the entire employee lifecycle.

HR is being rebuilt for the first time in twenty years.

Workday won the last cycle by digitising paperwork. The next cycle is owned by whoever rebuilds hiring and development around AI — under European rules, with full explainability. That window is open right now.

No human screening team can do this work — at this volume, with this consistency.

A senior recruiter screens roughly 200 applicants per role over two weeks. Higher screens 200 in 90 minutes, with deeper signal, full audit trails, and zero fatigue. Not faster humans. A different category of operation.

One platform, one data model, the whole employment lifecycle.

Nine modules sit on a single schema. The same person who applied is the same person who ramped, the same person whose pulse signals you read, the same person you might lose to a competitor in year three.

Nobody else covers the lifecycle and ships under EU rules.

The competitive landscape splits cleanly. American suites built for US labour law. European point tools that don't go end-to-end. AI hiring tools that face regulators in their largest target market. Higher is the only one in the middle.

€11.4B European HR-tech market — and the AI-native sub-segment is the fastest-growing slice.

Higher targets the intersection of recruitment-tech, HRIS, and AI-enabled employee experience — three categories converging into one buying decision.

Subscription is the core. PAYG is how we land mid-market and seasonal hirers.

Two pricing motions because we're going after two buying patterns simultaneously — the structured HR team that wants a year-long platform commitment, and the hiring manager who needs to fill 12 roles in March.

Four subscription tiers. One pay-as-you-go price.

Tier pricing is per company-size band, not per-seat scaling. EU HR teams told us the per-seat model in HRIS competitors creates a perverse incentive — Higher charges for the platform, not for adding people to it.

Sweden first. Three waves. €2.4M Year-1 marketing budget, weighted toward earned credibility.

We don't out-spend Workday. We out-message them in the markets where their US framing fails. Calibrated launch lines per geography, named anchor references per wave.

We spend where credibility compounds.

€1.4M → €38M ARR over four years.

Sweden anchor compounds into a five-market footprint. The mix shifts from Growth-tier SMB into Scale + Enterprise as the wave plan lands and the Continuous Development module drives expansion. NRR target 115%+.

~120 people. €24M opex. EBITDA-positive in Y4.

AI handles the throughput; humans handle the trust. Engineering and customer success outweigh sales headcount because the product, not the rep, does the conversion. Infrastructure is the second-largest line — EU residency and inference are not free.

€300–450M enterprise value at Y4 ARR.

EU HR-tech multiples sit at 6–10× revenue mature, 8–12× for high-growth category leaders. At €38M ARR with 130%+ growth and EU-native compliance moat, Higher prices into the upper band.

Raising €6M to compound the wave plan.

18-month runway to a Series-B trigger of €8–10M ARR. Capital deploys against the engineering moat first, the wave-2 commercial expansion second, and the trust infrastructure (SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / works-council templates) running through every line.

The EU is rewriting the rules of hiring.The platform that the works council can sign off wins the decade.

The EU is rewriting the rules of hiring.
The platform that the works council can sign off wins the decade.