PeopleSpark, the team communication platform on a mission to make one million people quantifiably happier at work, recently raised US$1 million in seed funding.
The platform launched out of a closed preview release in November last year and is aimed at improving openness, trust, and transparency between managers and their teams by fixing issues around retention, culture, and speed of feedback
The funding was led by PeopleSpark CEO Mitchell Harper (he co-founded Bigcommerce and grew it to 500 people, $125 million in funding and billions in transactions), and will be used to grow the team, build out the platform and accelerate customer acquisition.
“I had initially planned to raise a seed round from external investors, but after seeing the traction during our preview release and hearing the impact PeopleSpark was having at those companies, I decided to go “all in” and lead our seed round. I believe in the product and wanted to put my money where my mouth is,” said Harper.
“We’re getting great traction with companies who might be considered early adopters, specifically start-ups in hyper growth mode that know a great culture is mandatory, especially as they continue to hire at a rapid rate.”
How exactly does PeopleSpark work?
PeopleSpark helps managers get a weekly pulse on their teams, to dramatically improve their culture, communication and retention. Every week they know what their team is working on, how they’re feeling, what’s slowing them down and more.
Managers can respond to feedback from individual team members in real-time and get ahead of potential problems before they occur.
Keep in mind the following vital stats:
- Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202 per cent
- Only 6 per cent of companies believe their current process for managing performance is working
- Highly engaged employees are 87 per cent less likely to leave the company they work for
PeopleSpark solves three pain points for teams of any size, specifically:
- Retention — The #1 reason employees leave their job is that they feel they’re not being heard by their boss. PeopleSpark creates a private, weekly feedback loop between managers and each individual person on their team.
- Culture — Managers can get ahead of problems before they arise, helping them maintain the unique culture within their team, while taking action on issues in hours, not weeks.
- Speed — Annual and quarterly surveys provide helpful feedback but are too slow and too cumbersome to administer. PeopleSpark gives managers insightful feedback from their teams every week, whether they’re in the same office or in different countries.
How is PeopleSpark doing so far?
Engagement from employees at companies using the product is off the charts.
98 per cent of people complete their check-in week in, week out, which gives leaders a regular flow of extremely insightful feedback from their teams.
“It’s early days, but our mission is to make one million people quantifiably happier at work, and this funding will help us build some scale into the business,” said Harper.
PeopleSpark is available as a 14-day free trial with pricing starting from $49 per month for a team of up to 10 people. You can sign up at PeopleSpark.com to try it out.