It is not easy for startups to secure funding, sometimes even when things are going their way. However, Peakon, the startup that provides a platform for measuring and improving employee engagement, has successfully raised €30m in funding.
As per the Phil Chambers, CEO and co-founder of Peakon, the fresh influx of investment was raised via an extension to the company’s Series B funding, bringing the company’s total Series B round funding to €48m. Here’s what, and why, you should know about this highly dynamic startup.
What exactly is Peakon?
As mentioned earlier, Peakon is a platform for measuring and improving employee engagement. The startup offers its services so that employers can gather feedback from their employees in real-time. However, the company claims that it is mainly data driven and not simply a survey company. This is reflected in the start-ups’ claims that it can deliver personalised insights to managers, which is said to be backed by real data, so that they can improve their teams and hence, efficiency.
Peakon started off as a “people analytics” service but it evolved to become more of a complete SaaS for employee retention. The company says that it takes care of three key areas, the first one being employee engagement. Then, there’s personalised insight derived from gathered data, followed by the last key area of competitor analysis. Peakon departs from the standard annual assertion of employees to conduct weekly surveys.
The startup introduces equalised questions so that it can gather data for enabling industry-wide comparisons. This is helpful for a consumer of the service as it enables them to figure out what their next move should be, based on the current employee engagement level and the competition.
Who led the funding extension?
The B round series of funding for Peakon was led by Atomico. The latter is a venture capital firm that has headquarters setup in London. It was co-founded by the Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström and Mattias Ljungman, who will also be joining Peakon’s board. In Addition, existing investors in Peakon, namely IdInvest Partners, Sunstone, EQT Ventures, and Balderton, also backed the startup.
Talking about its series B funding, Chambers says, “When we announced our initial Series B funding this time last year, we had big ambitions. We used the investment to grow our teams across Europe, North America and APAC, with a big emphasis on product development. Since then, over 20 million survey responses have been submitted to Peakon from 150 different countries.”
What’s next for the dynamic startup?
It’s not tough to figure out that in the startup scene, more money usually equals growth and expansion. However, Peakon has slightly different plans as the company’s CEO, Chambers, says, “we’ll be investing heavily in our own people and growing our teams even further over the course of the next 18 months.” Since the expansion plan of the company needs new talent, there are several new job listings open for those who are seeking a fast-paced job at a thriving startup.
Additionally, with the arrival of fresh funds, Peakon aims at doubling its presence in Europe and APAC region. It says it will also triple its footprint in North America and continue to innovate on its existing services by investing in its engineering team. The company has offices in Denmark, UK, Germany and New Zealand.
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