Tallinn-headquartered Xolo, an online platform for launching and running one-person businesses in Europe, said it has launched its localized service in Spain, and plans to launch in five other countries in 2021-22, supported by additional 3.2 million euros it has raised this year.
The pandemic has given rise to a boom in single-person startups, increasing demand for Xolo’s services, it said in a statement.
Today’s funding follows $7.2m (€6m) Series A funding raised in July 2019, bringing total investment in the company to $13.6m (€11.2m). The investors include Karma Ventures (Estonia), Vendep Capital (Finland), as well as some of the biggest names in technology such as Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn’s Metaplanet Holdings and former LexisNexis CEO Andrew Prozes.
If Xolo’s services so far focused on location-independent, ex-pat, and nomadic freelancers then the opening of the new service targets the sole traders (called “autonomos”) in Spain and later in the other European countries. Spanish freelancers can now use Xolo’s highly automated digital platform for their accounting, tax filing, and other compliance needs.
“There are more than 40 million independent knowledge workers around the world. The growth of that number has accelerated during the pandemic. Also, we have seen that they are actually doing better than before the pandemic. Average billing of a Xolo customer has increased 29% in a year”.
Allan Martinson, Chief Executive Officer at Xolo
Xolo currently supports more than 75,000 solopreneurs from over 130 countries, generating an annual revenue run-rate (ARR) of $5m (€4m).
