Munich — User­lane — the deve­lo­pers of a leading digi­tal adop­tion solu­tion(photo from left Felix Eich­ler, Hart­mut Hahn and Kajetan A. Uhlig) — has successfully closed a Series B finan­cing round led by Five Elms Capi­tal. The backers inves­ted a total of around ten million euros, inclu­ding exis­ting inves­tors such as Capna­mic, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) and main incu­ba­tor, an early-stage inves­tor of the Commerz­bank Group. The invest­ment will drive Userlane’s inter­na­tio­nal expan­sion and acce­le­rate product deve­lo­p­ment. The goal of these steps is to help compa­nies around the world improve adop­tion of the growing number of soft­ware solu­ti­ons that are criti­cal to busi­ness success.

“We see our custo­mers adop­ting soft­ware solu­ti­ons — espe­ci­ally given current market condi­ti­ons — to manage a more home office and remote work orien­ted work­force. Each of these custo­mers relies on User­lane to help their employees use soft­ware faster and effec­tively manage the increased demand for soft­ware support. With this new invest­ment, we are able to expand our inter­na­tio­nal presence and acce­le­rate our product road­map while provi­ding opti­mal support to our custo­mers across diffe­rent markets and time zones,” explains Hart­mut Hahn, CEO of Userlane.

“The need for digi­tal soft­ware adop­tion solu­ti­ons is growing expo­nen­ti­ally as orga­niza­ti­ons deploy more appli­ca­ti­ons to manage an incre­asingly complex and geogra­phi­cally disper­sed work­force. Hart­mut and his team have brought toge­ther an extre­mely talen­ted team, foste­red an incre­di­ble culture and deve­lo­ped an impres­sive product, all with limi­ted resour­ces. We look forward to helping the company build on its foun­da­tion of success and signi­fi­cantly increase its presence in the U.S. market,” said Joe Onofrio, Part­ner at Five Elms Capital

User­lane has seen increased demand since March­De­spite this period of econo­mic uncer­tainty, the number of compa­nies rely­ing on Userlane’s tech­no­logy has grown rapidly. In addi­tion to fast-growing tech­no­logy compa­nies like Celo­nis, Perso­nio and Freight­hub, large inter­na­tio­nal orga­niza­ti­ons like Beiers­dorf, Linde and Alli­anz have star­ted working with User­lane to empower their users and employees.

At the heart of User­lane tech­no­logy are inter­ac­tive step-by-step guides that can be laye­red over any brow­­ser-based soft­ware. These guides can be crea­ted without prior tech­ni­cal know­ledge and lead users through complex proces­ses directly in the appli­ca­tion. Unlike video tuto­ri­als, User­lane commu­ni­ca­tes live with soft­ware users by using auto­ma­ti­cally coll­ec­ted data from the under­ly­ing appli­ca­tion to guide them through hundreds of actions. Users can learn how to complete any task within the soft­ware plat­form through their own actions, which in turn increa­ses soft­ware adoption.

The trend toward a remote work­force and the costs asso­cia­ted with imple­men­ting soft­ware to manage a more complex orga­niza­tion are putting tremen­dous pres­sure on compa­nies. User­lane is speci­fi­cally desi­gned to help compa­nies acce­le­rate their digi­tiza­tion efforts and promote effi­ci­ent and accu­rate soft­ware adop­tion. User­lane has enab­led custo­mers to reduce trai­ning and support costs by up to 75%, roll out new soft­ware and/or proces­ses three times faster, and onboard end users in half the time. Userlane’s plat­form has and will conti­nue to help compa­nies be more agile and respond more quickly to new challenges.

About User­lane
User­lane is an award-winning digi­tal adop­tion plat­form that helps compa­nies world­wide maxi­mize soft­ware adop­tion and usage. Users are intro­du­ced to new soft­ware with User­lane through inter­ac­tive in-app guidance and real-time contex­tual support. With over 200 inter­na­tio­nal custo­mers, the company is one of the top 50 tech start­ups in Europe and ranks 26th on the FAZ list of top German compa­nies. www.userlane.com.

About Five Elms Capital
Five Elms Capi­tal is a global inves­tor in fast-growing B2B soft­ware busi­nesses that users love. Five Elms provi­des capi­tal and resour­ces to help compa­nies acce­le­rate growth and further cement their role as indus­try leaders. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.fiveelms.com.

About Capna­mic Ventures
Capna­mic Ventures is one of Europe’s leading early-stage venture capi­tal inves­tors, based in Berlin and Colo­gne. The VC’s invest­ment focus is on tech­no­logy start­ups in German-spea­king count­ries. In addi­tion, Capna­mic invests with inter­na­tio­nal co-inves­­tors. All port­fo­lio compa­nies are supported by Capnamic’s global indus­try network. The exten­sive know-how of the Capna­mic team is based on more than 80 invest­ments, nume­rous successful trade sales and IPOs as well as own entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence in the invest­ment team. Capna­mic is led by Chris­tian Siegele, Jörg Binnen­brü­cker and Olaf Jacobi and as Mana­ging Part­ner. www.capnamic.com

About main incubator
main incu­ba­tor is the early-stage inves­tor and rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment unit of Commerz­bank Group. It inves­ti­ga­tes future tech­no­lo­gies that are rele­vant to the economy and society, and promo­tes and deve­lops sustainable solu­ti­ons. He deve­lops proto­ty­pes based on future tech­no­lo­gies such as addi­tive prin­ting, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, cross reality, Inter­net of Things, networks, robo­tics and quan­tum compu­ting, often in colla­bo­ra­tion with part­ners from indus­try and rese­arch. In this way, it actively helps to shape future-proof products, solu­ti­ons and infra­struc­tures. — Main Incu­ba­tor GmbH, or main incu­ba­tor for short, is a wholly owned subsi­diary of Commerz­bank AG based in Frank­furt am Main.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported almost 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €2.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.Investors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­­fer-Gesel­l­­schaft and the 32 compa­nies. Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­­fer-Gesel­l­­schaft and the 32 companies.