German startup Personio raises $200 million at $8.5 billion valuation

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - German human resources software startup Personio said on Wednesday it has added $200 million to the initial financing it raised in October at an increased valuation of $8.5 billion.

The latest funding round was led by Greenoaks Capital, which was also the lead investor when Personio raised $270 million last year at a valuation of $6.3 billion.

A weaker market condition has pushed many startups to scramble for new funding, even at a lower valuation, delaying plans to go public and causing them to cut jobs and costs to find a path to profitability.

While grocery delivery firm Instacart has cut its valuation by nearly 40%, financial tech company Klarna is in talks to raise funds at a much lesser valuation than the one it got last year.

Personio, founded in 2015, is now Germany's second-most valuable startup after Celonis, and has no plans to go public immediately.

"There is no rush for us. Our investors support us as a private company and nobody wants to sell at the moment," Chief Executive Hanno Renner said in an interview.

The company achieved a valuation of $1.7 billion early last year, becoming the second German technology startup after freight tech firm Sennder to be valued at over $1 billion.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm and Nadine Schimroszik in Berlin; Editing by Matthew Lewis)