The Challenge

​​Integrations as core business requirement

Ravio is a compensation benchmarking platform that helps companies make data-driven salary decisions. Founded in 2022, the company structured its business model to utilize real-time access to customer HR data.

Unlike traditional compensation tools that rely on static surveys sent out once a year or manual data entry, Ravio needed to pull live salary information directly from HR systems to deliver accurate benchmarking insights.

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The timing was critical for Ravio's market entry, as the HR ecosystem had finally reached a point where real-time data interoperability was possible through APIs.

Part of the reason why we started Ravio and why it made sense was because of the existence of unified APIs. The HR ecosystem reached a point where we could be interoperable with these systems in real time.
– Raymond Siems, Founder and CPTO of Ravio

But accessing customer data at scale presented a critical challenge. Their customers used a wide range of HR systems across different geographic markets, creating varied integration demands.

Meeting these diverse integration requests quickly became critical for closing deals and maintaining competitive advantage.

Ravio briefly explored building in-house integrations, but quickly realized this was not a sustainable choice.

To integrate the 40+ different systems their market demanded, they would have needed their four engineers working exclusively on this for a full year.

Beyond the technical complexity, establishing partnership agreements with major HR systems like Workday would have required significant time and resource investment.

This would have set back their go-to-market by 12-18 months - time they simply couldn't afford as a growing startup.

As a result, the company looked for an integration partner who could handle multiple HR systems and provide the detailed data needed for compensation analysis.

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The Solution

Ravio first started testing Kombo in late 2022 and then made it their primary infrastructure partner in the beginning of 2023. This decision proved crucial as Ravio connected over 1,000 customers in two years and achieved:

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Unified API architecture advantages

Rather than building separate connections to each HR system, Ravio integrated once with Kombo's unified API and gained access to 151 additional systems through standardized data models.

This unified approach meant Ravio's data engineering team could write their data pipeline once and rely on Kombo to handle the complexity of different authentication methods, rate limiting, and data formatting across various HR systems.

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Specialized field access and niche data coverage

Kombo's integrations delivered access to compensation-critical fields including niche data points that other providers couldn't support. For instance, data stored in custom fields about employees' equity options, bonuses, commissions, performance, team affiliation, and more.

This data is essential for delivering accurate salary benchmarks, salary bands, equity pay analysis, and comprehensive compensation reviews.

Kombo's integrations are best in class. If we need access to 20 fields including some niche fields that not many other providers are servicing or that only other players in our space need, then Kombo can deliver these fields.
– Raymond Siems, Founder and CPTO of Ravio

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Enhanced data access

Kombo's custom field explorer gave Ravio complete visibility into their customers' HR data by letting them search and explore the actual raw data stored in each system. 

This eliminated guesswork about available data and enabled Ravio to find and map custom fields containing salary data, even when stored in non-standard locations, without needing engineering support.

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Responsive development partnership

When Ravio needed access to unmapped fields or new data points, Kombo could quickly add them or work directly with ATS and HR system providers to improve API coverage.

For instance, Kombo built out the offer data model with status tracking, start dates, and other key fields for their ATS integrations.

Beyond technical support, Kombo also provides daily support on tool specifics, assists with onboarding when needed, and handles ongoing integration challenges.

When a customer's integration failed after they unexpectedly changed their data file structure, Kombo engineers diagnosed the issue and deployed a fix within hours. The solution made the affected fields optional, ensuring the integration would automatically resume when the data structure was restored.

This responsiveness was crucial for being able to quickly act on customer expectations.

In cases where a field that isn't mapped onto your schema or you haven't yet access to, we can go to you and you quickly add it. If you can't add it, you have the relationships with the ATS and HR systems to actually get those quickly. With Merge, this would have landed in their backlog for the next quarter.
– Raymond Siems, Founder and CPTO of Ravio

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The Outcome

Kombo's unified API infrastructure enabled Ravio to achieve:

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Optimized resource allocation

By outsourcing integration development and maintenance to Kombo, Ravio's engineering team could focus entirely on developing core product features.

This saved an estimated $400k in salaries for spending a full year developing integrations, while avoideing the opportunity cost of delaying their product roadmap by up to a year.

Ravio’s team further went from spending 60-70 hours weekly on integration maintenance, customer support, and technical onboarding assistance to just 12-18 hours with Kombo.

This shift in resource allocation directly supported their growth from a startup to a 90-person company serving 1,000+ customers.

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Advanced compensation analytics at scale

With access to comprehensive HR data through Kombo, Ravio built a compensation benchmarking platform that helps customers compare pay against market rates and within their own companies.

For instance, HR teams can now instantly identify gender pay gaps across teams or check if a proposed salary for a new position meets market standards for their industry and growth stage.

With traditional compensation surveys, companies could only access this data once a year or quarter at best. By syncing this data through Kombo, Ravio now provides daily updates to their customers.

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Market expansion through integration coverage

Over 18 months, Kombo added 10+ new systems based on Ravio's requests, enabling the company to win deals requiring connections to less common HR platforms like Cezanne HR, Zelt, and AlexisHR. This expanded integration coverage directly increased Ravio's total addressable market and competitive win rate.

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How Ravio uses Kombo:

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