A Note About Our Series A and Tonkean’s Role in Building the Future
Today, we announced the completion of Tonkean’s $24 million Series A round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. This is something we’re remarkably excited about. It’s a huge step for our company. Our mission is to empower operations teams to design and manifest the future of work — a future that’s more adaptive, efficient, and appreciative of the importance of people, as opposed to tech, or data. This round of funding, in allowing us to scale the Adaptive Business Operations technology we’re building, will help us do precisely that. In a time of disruption and uncertainty, we have little time to waste, which is why this raise — along with the partner we’ve acquired through it — is such a big deal.
Over the last few days, though, I’ve been unsure of how to share news of the raise with the world. So often the blog posts you read from founders in times like this come off as superficial. It’s important to me to not pull any punches. The world is scared right now. Now is not the time to celebrate or pat ourselves on the back. What we need to do is get to work. Ultimately, I decided that the best way to convey our mix of urgency and excitement would be to share the email I sent out to my team earlier this month.
Here it is, in full:
Team,
These are crazy times.
Jobs are at risk. Businesses are at risk. Lives are at risk.
In a time where everything is so hard to predict, one thing is certain: things are going to change.
We are not unfamiliar with change. In fact, we built Tonkean to enable change. In these crazy times, one’s ability to adapt to change becomes even more important.
Businesses are built on operations of people, tools and processes. The companies that will survive and even flourish in such times are the companies that are able to adapt. To move fast and lead the change that was forced upon them.
This is our opportunity to help. More so — our calling.
I’m honored and excited to announce we have officially completed our Series A round of fundraising of $24M, led by Lightspeed and joined by our current investors Foundation Capital, Magma and Slow. This money will allow us to continue supporting companies and the fast-growing demand for our platform. Our investors understand, as you do, the importance of enabling businesses and organizations to design their own futures. And it starts with empowering their operations.
With our growing customer base, we have seen first hand how Tonkean enables ops teams to quickly react, adapt, and scale during change. How Tonkean helps companies cultivate a people-first mindset and begin building a better, more flexible, and more empathetic foundation. It’s important we keep up that work.
Operations teams around the world are waking up to a new reality. Nobody knows what tomorrow will look like, and for many this is scary. More than ever before, ops teams’ role is key in scaling, in business continuity, in leading this change. Our mission is to give them the tools, partnership, and support they need to go about creating this new future. That starts with our new Adaptive Business Operations (ABO) platform — the new category of enterprise software we’re creating.
But operations are first and foremost about people.
That’s why we are also launching a new community — AdaptivOps — to serve as a home for operations leaders and personnel to come together, learn, and share knowledge. It’s a cross-functional community that will focus on adapting to change–and leading it.
I’m so proud of our journey — it’s not easy to create a new category, especially when you are so early to the market. The last 4 years were full of ups and downs, last-minute changes, pivots, personal sacrifices, constant innovation, and hard work. It required belief and perseverance to get here. And I want to thank each and every one of you for that.
There is always a way. It’s just a matter of finding it.
Adapting and leading change is in our company DNA. Enabling operations teams to adapt and lead change is our mission. Carrying it out will enable all of us, as humanity, to create a better future of work.
In times like these, this is crucial.
Congrats, and stay safe.
Sagi
CEO & Co-Founder, Tonkean
