Reading Between the Lines while Hiring for the Frontline: Our Investment in Sprockets

Hunter Hartwell
Forté Ventures Insights
3 min readMar 29, 2022
Sprockets’ CEO, AJ Richichi.

Of the many societal shifts resulting from Covid, one that has fascinated me the most has been the rise of an “employee empowerment” mindset that has driven a more honest public conversation about burnout and a once-in-a-generation rise in job-switching and workforce departures. Among knowledge workers, it has become both acceptable and encouraged to prioritize mental health, cultural fit, and purpose above — or at least on par with — a paycheck and promotions.

While I am very much an advocate for the above changes, I am also aware that some beneficiaries of this post-Covid era, namely knowledge workers, are guilty of bragging about their newly possible career moves while simultaneously complaining about understaffing and lower service levels at local restaurants. Many of LinkedIn’s loudest voices simply choose to forget their own calls for workforce engagement and employee happiness when it comes to the frontline workers that power a huge chunk of our economy.

Although it seems like an obvious statement, our investment team at Forte Ventures believes that things like cultural fit and mission alignment are just as important in frontline jobs (e.g., QSR employees, home health professionals) as they are inside of law firms or the sprawling corporate campuses of Silicon Valley. This belief is what led us to start exploring the hiring and retention practices of hourly workforce employers almost two years ago, and it is what made us pay close attention to the hypergrowth of Sprockets, a hiring platform that helps managers in QSR, hospitality, and several other categories build more cohesive teams.

The Charleston-based company’s Applicant Matching System uncovers which potential hires share personality traits with a location’s or a branch’s current top performers and assigns them “fit scores” from one to ten, depending on their likelihood of success. This enables hiring managers to make smarter hiring decisions, ultimately improving employee retention by 43% and reducing time spent on the hiring process by 37%, on average. It also gives applicants and prospective employees the comfort that they are going to be hired into a role and/or location where they are a good fit and where they are more likely to succeed.

Sprockets’ CEO, AJ Richichi, reflected on the company’s growth so far and stated, “We’re challenging a hiring process that’s been static for hundreds of years, and we’re being rewarded with great customer traction. We’ve been fortunate enough to work with some of the world’s biggest brands, integrate with industry-leading technologies, and build a world-class team.”

After having watched Sprockets grow over the last several years, our team at Forte Ventures is excited to announce that we led the company’s Series A financing round, which will enable the team to expand its customer footprint across more segments and to help more frontline workers take part in a hiring process that is designed to help them thrive at work. The $10 million round included participation from Thayer Ventures, Healthy Ventures, Lytical Ventures, Blu Ventures, and VentureSouth.

We are incredibly excited to be partnering with AJ and the rest of the Sprockets management team, and we consider ourselves fortunate to be aligned with such a compelling mission regarding the future of frontline work. Onward and upward!

--

--

Forté Ventures Insights
Forté Ventures Insights

Published in Forté Ventures Insights

Founded in 2012, Forté Ventures is a multi-stage venture capital firm investing alongside leading Corporate VCs in tech businesses across the U.S. and Canada

Hunter Hartwell
Hunter Hartwell

Written by Hunter Hartwell

VC investing dollars into all things AI. Investing time into books, music, and an average golf game.

No responses yet