Pre-seed financing round for VCoach

Better Ventures and several business angels have invested a six-figure sum in the HR start-up VCoach. Among other things, the start-up wants to use the money to further develop its product.

A virtual personal trainer for one's communication skills, that's the proposition of start-up VCoach. Now the Munich-based company is announcing a six-figure pre-seed funding round. The round is led by venture capitalist Better Ventures, and includes several business angels such as Björn Kolbmüller, founder of Flaconi, Josef Arweck, managing director of Arjos Invest, and Klaus Mantel, former CEO of job advertising company Experteer.

The start-up will put the money into expanding its team and further developing its products and software. "Our goal is to use AI to implement more trainings, as well as enter new areas, such as the education sector," said co-founder Stephanie Mayer. VCoach offers virtual training for communication skills, and customers include individuals as well as companies such as Telefonica and Marc O`Polo.

"Soft skills training has become a top priority in HR development - and yet today`s soft skills training is costly, ineffective, not very sustainable and hardly scalable", Stephanie Mayer describes the motivation for the start-up in spring 2020 for her and her partners Benjamin Gumpp, Clemens Lechner and Tobias Hölzer. The concept has also convinced Better Ventures: "We see great potential in vCoach, because the founding team is personally and professionally diverse and will help many people to get the best out of themselves and others, both professionally and privately," says Christoph Behn from Better Ventures