DCM Ventures leads Series A in AnyPerk
People are a company’s most valuable resource.
When I co-founded ChoicePass, an enterprise perks management platform, five years ago, we had a vision to help small and medium-sized businesses attract and retain talent by providing employee perks and rewards to enhance their respective corporate cultures.
Shortly after my company was acquired by Salesforce in 2012, Taro (co-founder & CEO of AnyPerk), reached out to me about his start-up. I was immediately impressed with his passion and belief that employee happiness is central to attracting and retaining talent, not just in Silicon Valley but globally. Work.com (the Salesforce division that ChoicePass became part of) was initially focused on the HR performance management market, but ultimately shifted its strategy to sales performance management. However, I have always believed there was an underserved need for new solutions focused on delivering employee rewards, tracking and analyzing employee moral, and collecting employee feedback.
Last year, I joined DCM Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm with a long history of investing in both consumer internet and enterprise software across the US and Asia. All the while, AnyPerk was filling a major gap by being laser focused, first on products in employee perks, then in moving into employee rewards with a vision of creating a platform to enable happy and fulfilled employees. There are a number of studies that show happy employees to be more committed to their organizations (32% more according to HBR) and less likely to burnout compared to peers. Even more importantly, unhappy employees cost companies $300 billion in lost productivity. That is why a solution like AnyPerk is so important, even if it does not seem obvious. Many people only think of HR software for payroll or benefits administration, compliance, or applicant tracking. While employee happiness might be intangible it’s a real issue and in today’s competitive marketplace, companies need to keep their employees feeling appreciated and happy.
Without a doubt, the HR SaaS space has been heating up over the past few years. In addition to notable venture rounds by companies like Zenefits and ZenPayroll, there have been upstarts like Namely and JustWorks. But AnyPerk is the leader in the employee perks category and has seen early traction in the $50 billion enterprise rewards market. The company has had double-digit MRR growth since it launched several years ago, and has amazingly low churn numbers. This is why DCM Ventures is so excited about partnering with AnyPerk and is leading the $8.5 million Series A round. Taro has built a strong team, including veterans from Yammer, Gild and Responsys, who are passionate about employee happiness. We look forward to working with the team as we believe this is just the beginning for AnyPerk!
