Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures invests $11m in London startup Lystable
Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures has ploughed more cash into a startup founded in London which boasts Google among its clients.
Lystable has landed $11m (£7.5m) from Thiel's fund, Goldcrest Capital and Spring Partners to fund its expansion in the US.
The year-old startup provides software for companies to easily manage their contract and freelance workers, which number around 53m in the US and 9.6m in the EU, according to the company.
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The latest round brings total investment to more than $15m.
Lystable will relocate its headquarters from London to the US where it believes there is greater opportunity for the fledgling company.
"It’s starting to make less and less sense being in London," founder and former Googler Peter Johnston told City PM earlier this year.
"Our clients, investors and leads are predominantly out there. Being able to grab these amazing people for a few minutes on the phone is pretty tough if they’re just waking up and our day is finishing.”
The startup intends to have a main team numbering 35 people based in the US by the end of the year.
“This phase is now one of growth," said Johnston.
"We have figured out a lot of nuances and worked to make our model repeatable and scalable with large companies. Securing this funding allows us to scale out sales and marketing and bring in a number of key senior hires on product and engineering.”
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Lystable is a graduate of the Techstars accelerator. Its 60 clients also include The Economist, Airbnb, CNBC and MTV and it currently manages 20,000 contractors each week.
Valantar Ventures' founding partner James Fitzgerald said: “Legacy software is not equipped to deal with the growing freelancer economy. Lystable’s product solves a real pain point for enterprises who are managing an increasing number of freelancers and contractors. Their product is in another league compared with the incumbents.”