Meet CultureIQ, Lerer Hippeau Ventures’ Latest Investment

LHV Partner Taylor Greene shares the story behind the seed round

The LHV Team talked with Taylor Greene about how CultureIQ came to be the newest addition to the LHV family, and why company culture is critical in today’s workforce.

LHVT: What is CultureIQ? What does it do?

TG: It’s a New York-based management platform that helps companies assess and strengthen their culture through enterprise software.

LHVT: And how did the company land on LHV’s radar?

TG: Back in May, my friend Gabe at the Pritzker Group introduced me to Greg Besner, CultureIQ’s founder and CEO. Greg came into LHV for an initial meeting, and over the next three months, we watched him and his team execute over and over again. They released product update after product update and brought in new client after new client. We were impressed.

Now, Greg and his team have only been selling the product for about a year, and they’ve accomplished so much. They’ve grown from 12 customers on their platform to over 400, and some of those are the largest companies in the world. It’s yet another reason we’re thrilled to lead this seed round.

If you feel like your company is invested in you, you become more invested in your company, and then everyone’s primed for greater success.

LHVT: It seems like traditionally “soft” management issues like corporate culture are coming to the forefront right now.

TG: They are. If you take a look at Deloitte, they said, “this year, culture and engagement was rated the most important issue overall, slightly edging out leadership (the No. 1 issue last year).” It’s a compelling reason to be interested the vertical, but it’s just common sense that there’s a reciprocal relationship between culture and work output.

LHVT: If it’s common sense, why do you think we’re seeing a rise in these worker-focused SaaS businesses?

TG: In a word, millennials. They are now the largest sector in the workforce. They move jobs more often than other generations, and because they’re not afraid to speak up when something’s broken, it’s never been more important to create a company culture that meets their needs and still aligns with every generation. One of the reasons we’re so excited about CultureIQ is because it’s the ultimate resource for addressing this challenge. It gives managers an easy way to understand their current culture and strengthen it to increase employee retention and satisfaction.

Defining and growing a company’s culture is complicated — it gets built piece by piece as you hire person by person, and if you’re not careful, you forget where you started and where you wanted to end up.

LHVT: Basically, happy employees work harder.

TG: That’s the idea. If you feel like your company is invested in you, you become more invested in your company, and then everyone’s primed for greater success. That’s why we love SaaS businesses geared towards making employee-friendly workplaces. Case in point: we invested in Namely to make HR accessible — to make it actually human — and we invested in Maxwell Health because employees should be able to understand their benefits and navigate them easily. Tools like these empower workers, make them feel respected and valued, and make for a stronger overall culture.

LHVT: So, is CultureIQ about to end the long tradition of “nightmare” workplaces?

TG: I think we all have or have heard stories of working in great or terrible office cultures. When I first met Greg, I thought back to Ben Lerer’s New York Times interview about the culture Ben created at Thrillist. Defining and growing a company’s culture is complicated — it gets built piece by piece as you hire person by person, and if you’re not careful, you forget where you started and where you wanted to end up. So, I’m excited that, thanks to Greg and his team, there’s finally a platform to show managers where they currently are, and can help them implement the programs necessary to develop the culture they want — the one that will keep their employees happy for years to come.

Read more about Taylor Greene and the rest of the LHV team, and check out other Lerer Hippeau investments.