Fountain’s international growth helps raise more than $200 million in funding

The frontline workforce makes up a significant portion of the world’s workforce. But despite the fact that laborers, call center workers, medical assistants, and other hourly employees are the backbone of the global economy, most applicant tracking systems (ATSs) weren’t designed for them. That is, until Fountain changed the game. 

With more than $200 million in funding and a presence in more than 75 countries, Fountain is the leading platform for helping recruiters and talent acquisition teams hire hourly workers at scale. It helps enterprises process tens of millions of job applications, and hire millions of team members every year. 

With such a strong international presence, Fountain needs a global HR partner that can support its cross-border hiring efforts — which is why it partnered with Remote. Here’s how the partnership allows Fountain to achieve its recruitment goals, and continue its rapid growth.

Fountain at a glance

• Headquarters: The US

• Founded: 2014

• Hiring with Remote in: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Spain, and Sweden

• Industry: HR technology

When Fountain was founded in 2014, the company’s mission was simple: to empower recruiters to efficiently hire hourly workers. Having realized that this process was a different one to hiring salaried employees, Fountain was able to provide a solution for hiring organizations — and for workers themselves, too. 

“We identified this as a really unique business opportunity,” says Luke McKinlay, Fountain’s VP of Finance. “Not only to help companies modernize their HR technology stack, but to help people discover new job opportunities more easily, move through the application process quicker, and choose the right job for them.”

As an early hire, McKinlay has seen much of Fountain’s growth firsthand.

“I started as the first hire in finance, as employee number 25,” he says. “Since then, we’ve scaled to over 200 people worldwide, raised series B Funding and two rounds of Series C funding. The journey has been incredibly rewarding thus far.”

Finding the right global HR partner

The company secured Series A funding relatively quickly, allowing it to build out a sizable international presence. But to continue to scale and support more growth, Fountain needed to grow its internal headcount.

The company had previously been working with Velocity Global to hire internationally. However, according to McKinlay, the provider’s slow processes and country limitations were hindering Fountain’s own growth ambitions.

McKinlay searched the market for an alternative that would allow Fountain to hire broadly while continuing to grow quickly. 

“We assessed Remote and one of its competitors,” he says, “and the level of service we received during the evaluation process gave us a great sense of Remote and how it operates.”

We determined Remote’s global compliance position was the best in the market. It was clear they were the right partner for us as we moved forward.

For McKinlay, the switch was a “breath of fresh air.”

“We were able to operate more efficiently, make quicker decisions, and get people started in new countries so much faster than before,” he says. “Remote is easier for our people to navigate. It’s very user-friendly, and our employees are much happier since the switch.”

As a bonus, Fountain also learned that Remote was a sister portfolio company.

“We discovered that two of our investors, SoftBank and B Capital, had also invested in Remote,” McKinlay says. “It became an even easier decision to align — and we haven’t looked back.”

How being a global company helped raise $200m+ in funding

To support its growing client base, Fountain needed employees in every region where it had customers. And it needed to onboard those team members quickly.

As it raised Series B and Series C funding, Fountain also needed to impress investors.

“In today’s market, aligning with the investor and getting them really excited about what Fountain can do is a really fun and unique challenge," McKinlay explains.

The partnership with Remote allowed Fountain to do all these things. It was able to hire abroad quickly and easily and, as a result, investors were able to see the foundation the company was building. Fountain raised $23 million in Series B funding in 2019, $85 million in Series C funding in 2021, and $100 million in further Series C funding in 2022.

“Our investors were really excited about Fountain’s global presence,” McKinlay says. “Having a global brand is very beneficial, and one of the key reasons we secured investment.

“Our product supports multiple languages, and we have customers and employees all over the world. It just makes us more attractive.”

Having a strong partner in Remote allows us to expand internationally at a faster rate than we would be able to by ourselves. That is a huge, huge benefit.

Reducing costs and legal headaches

Compliance is always vital for an international company, but especially so during a fundraising process. Therefore, Fountain wanted to make sure it was dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’.

With employees in multiple countries, this had the potential to be a costly, time-consuming, and frustrating challenge.

“If we had to coordinate everything in-house, I’d have to hire an extra four people to manage entities, local solicitors, tax firms, accountants, payroll, and translation services,” McKinlay says. “It would cost upwards of an extra $500,000 per year.”

If Fountain ran into compliance issues in another country, these costs would potentially spiral further, too, with the company needing to find local legal counsel and accountants.

Remote takes all of these burdens off Fountain’s plate — and gives McKinlay peace of mind.

“It’s a wonderful partnership,” he says. “It prevents these issues from ever even happening. We’re compliant from the get-go.”

Remote has lawyers in every single jurisdiction that it operates in, which gives me comfort that we’re operating within the lines of every single country's compliance regime.

The freedom to hire globally

The partnership has opened up new markets for Fountain, giving the company the ability to hire all over the world.

“Working with Remote has helped us unlock new talent markets in Europe, India, and the Philippines,” McKinlay explains. “This means we’re able to focus on customer-facing hires in Europe, and offer 24/7 support to our key enterprise clients — which is what’s required from a B2B software company like Fountain.”

Remote’s local experts help the company offer competitive salaries, benefits, and compensation packages when hiring in these countries. It also ensures that the company benefits from a wide range of international backgrounds.

“Having a diverse range of voices and experiences across all our decision-making processes is crucial,” McKinlay says. “Making sure those voices are represented and heard is so important to our success as a global company.”

All of this ensures that, despite operating as a remote-first organization, Fountain can cultivate a viable company culture. For McKinlay, the fruits of this are evident during Fountain’s team meetups and company-wide retreats.

“At our recent company-wide conference, we had teams from all over the world join us, as well as our advisors from New Zealand, India, and Germany,” he says. “Seeing everybody get together under one roof and have such a great time really showed the benefit of creating a team with a global voice, where everyone is empowered to contribute to the culture of the company. It was incredible to see.”

Having Remote’s expert guidance is extraordinarily helpful and ensures we’re competitive in the talent market.

The flexibility to test — and exit — new markets

As a startup, it’s important for Fountain to be able to easily test new markets. Ordinarily, this would be an expensive, time-consuming, and risky process, but Remote’s country coverage makes it simple to test the waters in new regions.

“This has been one of the biggest benefits of partnering with Remote, and it’s enabled us to enter and exit several markets,” McKinlay says. “We’ve learned where Fountain sells really well, and where it doesn’t sell well because of certain nuances of the region.

“We wouldn’t have known that without Remote helping us through that testing phase.”

As Fountain has expanded, the company has also started to acquire other businesses. Remote has provided key stopgap support during these acquisitions, especially for employees who are transitioning across to Fountain.

What’s next for Fountain?

Fountain is proud of what it has accomplished in less than a decade, and the company is excited to move forward as a remote-first global team.

“We’re so happy to be able to offer the flexibility for our people to work remotely,” McKinlay says. “It means that, no matter where you live, no matter the time zone, you’re still able to work with an incredible team at an amazing company doing amazing things.”

For McKinlay, the company’s future looks bright.

“We have lots of global expansion still to come, with a particular focus on the US,” he says. “Our story is just getting started and we’re so excited to continue our journey — supported by amazing partners like Remote.”

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