This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, we sit down with Hanno Renner, co-founder and CEO of Personio, a leading European all-in-one HR software platform built for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Founded in 2105 in Munich, Personio supports companies across the full employee lifecycle, from recruitment and onboarding to payroll, performance, and people analytics. Today, the company serves more than a million employees across Europe and has raised a total of $724 million to support its long-term growth and expansion.
In the interview, Hanno reflects on Personio’s decade-long journey, including the early days when the company was close to running out of cash, and what fundamentally changes when a startup moves from survival mode into scale-up territory. We discuss scaling challenges, founder roles, and the proposed 28th regime. The conversation also touches on leadership lessons drawn from Hanno’s time as a yacht skipper, Personio’s broader societal ambitions through the Personio Foundation, and much more!
Key Takeaways
- From near-zero cash to multi-billion valuation: the least visible but hardest phases of Personio’s growth
- What breaks – and what surprisingly holds – when scaling from startup to European scaleup
- Personio’s evolving role at the centre of Europe’s HRTech ecosystem
- Why EU Inc and the 28th regime are critical for Europe’s ability to build global tech champions
