Tandem HR
HR professional Aisling Teillard left corporate employment to develop and launch a workplace app. Peer support from other women was very important when raising funds, she tells Darren O’Loughlin
Aisling Teillard left her HR career to develop a performance management platform. Female peer support helped her to raise venture capital
Employee performance management used to consist of filling out a questionnaire before an awkward chat with the boss. Having worked in senior HR roles, Aisling Teillard had her fill of stilted performance reviews, so she turned to technology to see if there was a better solution. Along with Clare Bonham and Jim O’Brien, Teillard founded Tandem HR Solutions in Dublin in 2016.
“We wondered how we could make the process of feedback easier and more comfortable for employees and time-poor managers,” says Teillard, who set about creating a digital platform that facilitates more in-depth employer-employee communications. The result can provide personalised coaching, real-time feedback, check-ins and goal tracking.
Not the least of Teillard’s achievements to date has been sourcing substantial investment capital, which has amounted to €3.3m. Teillard’s career journey took her into HR roles with AIB and SAP before Telefonica O2, where she was head of HR. While in the telco she met Bonham and the pair worked together on several projects.
When Three acquired Telefonica O2, Teillard (46) left to become a consultant. It was then that she began sketching out the idea for Tandem and she reconnected with Bonham (38). Also involved in Tandem’s inception was Jim O’Brien (65), founding director of People Consulting. He stepped down from the board of directors in 2018.
“We got going in 2016 with some early prototypes,” says Teillard, adding that the initial software development was outsourced. Tandem began as a platform that allowed employers and employees to communicate on a regular basis for performance monitoring, goal creation and coaching.
Employees could anonymously rate the feedback they were receiving, which could then be analysed and fed back to managers, with tips on how to improve the communication process. The platform could work on a standalone basis or integrate with other HR programmes.
Based in the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) at the time, the founders took their prototype to the HR Tech World Congress in Paris in 2016, where it won the award for best disruptive technology. “We were very surprised at the level of interest from large-scale companies,” Teillard recalls. “In 2017 we settled down and turned Tandem into a real business.”
Tandem HR is built on its software platform but the business also provides consultancy for new clients around their performance management strategy. Revenue is generated through user licences for the SaaS solution. Tandem’s first big client win was ABN Amro, the Dutch banking group.
Teillard explains: “We were clear that we wanted to sell to large enterprises. However, serving that market comes with huge costs, particularly around information security and data protection. We had to organise a funding round, which was our first big challenge for Tandem. The world of VCs and angel investors was alien to me, so it took a lot of learning.”
Joining the NDRC accelerator programme helped with the learning curve, according to Teillard. “Our NDRC programme was only for female founders, which turned out to
‘We had to organise a funding round, which was our first big challenge for Tandem’
be amazing. I had my doubts going into it, as for a lot of my working life I was used to working with men. The programme brought ambitious women together to bond and support each other.
“It is a unique journey, being a woman and raising funds in a maledominated world. It helped to have peers with whom you could discuss the awful day you had, or the pitch that went wrong, the frustrations of selling to enterprise etc. The NDRC accelerator that came after ours didn’t have a female focus and you could see how the female voices on it quietened during those sessions. I think there is a need for more female-focused business programmes.”
NDRC put Tandem in contact with Frontline Ventures, which led a funding round in 2017. Frontline invested €855,000 and Act Venture Capital invested €600,000. Other investors in that round included BriteBill founders Alan Coleman and Jim Hannon (€50,000 each), WorkMatters founder Kevin Empey (€25,000) and Enrique Curran (€25,000).
Taxpayers became involved in 2018, with Enterprise Ireland investing €375,000 in two tranches. More equity was raised in 2019. Frontline Ventures (€250,000) and Act Venture Capital (€100,000) came back for more, joined by Business Venture Partners (€1m), which rounds up investors using the EII scheme.
Tandem also secured investment last year from Tuscany Enterprises (€100,000), owned by Enrique Curran’s mum Marissa, and Virgin Media Ireland CEO Tony Hanway (€56,000), who sits on the Tandem HR board.
“Tony brings the perspective of a client to our strategising by asking what he would want for his business,” says Teillard. “Alan Coleman has also been on the SaaS journey and sold to enterprise, so he is a great mentor and board chairman for Tandem.”
The funding round last year was necessary because Tandem HR Solutions Ltd had spent €1.7m of its €2.1m equity by the end of 2018. Where did all the cash go? “Tech eats money, as there are so many costs involved. Software development is our biggest expense but there are other outlays too, such as security and ensuring GDPR compliance.”
Tandem’s offering has expanded to include survey support, 360-degree feedback and agile goal-setting. “It has moved beyond pure performance management and into an ecosystem of managers helping their people to develop and grow,” says Teillard. She adds that Tandem’s more holistic offering is also its USP, as competitors in the HR space tend to focus either on survey-driven solutions only or on feedback/ check-ins.
There’s a lot of smart money riding on Teillard and Bonham’s endeavours. Corporate investment on ‘nice-to-haves’ is sure to be reined in post Covid-19, though the founders remain optimistic.
Says Teillard: “We rely heavily on conferences and face-to-face meetings to sell, to we have had to transition to remote working for all of this. There’s a greater urgency now among HR directors for digital transformation, as they try to work out how to manage dispersed teams. The current remote working setups won’t last forever, but there will be an element of remote working going forward.
“I think that Tandem’s proposition is more relevant now because of Covid-19. Businesses have an opportunity to transform their HR and workplaces, and Tandem HR can be a real asset for them.”