Lara is the AI version of the HRBP every mid-market company says they need but can't afford. It lives where employees already chat — WhatsApp, Slack, Teams — and handles onboarding, surveys, feedback collection, and the long tail of "is this question worth bothering HR with" inquiries. Acquired by Visma (Norway) in April 2025.

## Why I backed it

**Right channel, right buyer.** Same instinct that worked at Sirena: meet people in WhatsApp, not in a portal nobody opens. Lara understood that employee experience tools fail because employees don't go to them — so they went to where employees already were.

**Founders who'd been operators.** They'd built and sold inside HR teams before founding the company. They knew what HR leaders ignore vs. what they actually pay for.

**Strategic exit makes sense.** Visma has 4.5M users across LatAm HR tech. Lara plugs into that distribution overnight rather than burning years building a sales team. The founders chose the right buyer, not just the highest one.

## The exit

Acquired by Visma in April 2025 (terms undisclosed). Clean strategic outcome: Visma needed an AI HR layer for the LatAm portfolio; Lara needed enterprise distribution. The kind of acquisition where both sides win — which is rarer than the headlines suggest.