The CDG Group’s investment arm, CDG Invest, participated in the seed fundraising round for the startup Palm, alongside the KIMA Ventures and Bpifrance funds, among others, for a total of 20 million dirhams ($1.9M). CDG Invest contributed 6.3 million dirhams to the financing.
This funding will help the company Palm, which specialises in talent management within enterprises using AI and deep learning, to continue its expansion in Europe and solidify its centre of technical expertise and artificial intelligence in Morocco, according to a press statement from the firm.
As part of its objective to foster entrepreneurship and the upmarketization of the Moroccan economy, the 212Founders programme has so far completed 14 Seed and Series A financings totaling 76.3 million dirhams since 2019.
read also Nigerian Fintech Startup OnePipe Secures $4.8M Debt Financing From TLG Capital
Several clients have trusted the PALM startup, particularly: ESSEC, Aswo, PayFit — the benchmark French unicorn on the HR software market in France.
Founded in 2021 by Hela Atmani and Chloé Barnoin, Palm is a platform for AI-powered skill and career management. Companies may use Palm to map each employee’s talents, predict their training requirements, and engage them in individualised career pathways based on their skills, goals, and performance.
“We are thrilled to have 212Founders on board to help us accelerate our growth. Our technological expertise centre is located between Paris and Casablanca. We want to recruit, quadruple the size of the local team by the end of 2023 in order to “to make it a hub of knowledge and R&D in the next years. We expect CDG Invest to help us become the leader in skills and career management in Europe and Africa,” says Hela Atmani, co-founder and CEO of Palm.
read alsoCall for Applications for Mastercard Smart Path Small Business Programme
Palm is among the first 212Founders startups to be fostered at Station F in Paris. Throughout the 6-month incubation phase, the Palm startup worked with the 212Founders teams to consolidate the business’s strategic vision, establish the operational plan, and manage the activities operationally.
At the end of this incubation phase, 212Founders makes a first seed investment with one of the world’s most active seed funds, KIMA Ventures, Bpifrance, and various French Family Offices, for a total of 20 million dirhams.
We are pleased to identify Palm as one of the first businesses of the 212Founders programme sponsored and financed in France at Station F,” says Youssef Mamou, programme director.
|
“The technological solution’s resilience and applicability struck us. Palm was chosen by big European players to assist them in managing human problems,” he went on to say.
read also Guinean Fintech Startup YMO Raises $3.1M To Scale In West Africa
This initial round of funding will allow the team to expand throughout Europe and establish an artificial intelligence centre of expertise in Morocco.
AI Talent Management Palm
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard