DURHAM – Peoplelogic, a startup focused on the growing challenge of employee retention in the midst of the ongoing “Great Resignation,” has landed financial backing from several high-profile Triangle investors as well as a Silicon Valley startup fund.
The company on Tuesday announced $1.9 million in funding from people such as Scot Wingo, Richard Holcomb, James Avery and Susan Wall.
Institutional backers include California-based Underdog Labs and the North Carolina Venture Capital Fund, which co-led the round as well as the Triangle-based Tweener Fund led by serial entrepreneur Wingo.
“Peoplelogic was founded with the goal of improving organizational health,” said Peoplelogic CEO Matt Schmidt in the announcement. “Even prior to the pandemic, we wanted to understand how work gets done in an organization and ultimately, help leaders drive towards healthier organizations and happier people.”
Here’s how Pew research described the challenges facing companies in trying to retain employees:
The Durham startup looks to help with its focus on a “future-of-work” platform.
Wingo describes Peoplelogic as “Fitbit for the org.”
“Surveys are helpful, but are always ‘too little, too late’. I view Peoplelogic as building a ‘Fitbit for the org’ which has huge value to any businesses – especially when we are dealing with the changing future of work married with the Great Resignation,” Wingo, the CEO of Spiffy and longtime, former CEO of Trianglebased ChannelAdvisor, noted.
Avery is CEO of Kevel.
Wall is chief operating officer of Corevist.
Peoplelogic’s approach captured the attention of Underdog Labs, which describes itself as a “boutique start up accelerator and pre-seed fund. We work with passionate, early stage founders to help them navigate the first success milestones. We are experienced, serial entrepreneurs who work shoulder to shoulder with you and complement our muscle with capital. We are often the first investors.”
In the announcement, David Hehman, a partner at Underdog Labs, explained the reasoning for the investment:
“Peoplelogic takes the mystery out of scaling an organization, helping companies gain key insights to better performance manage teams and retain key talent.”
How so?
Here’s what Peoplelogic says:
“Over the past two and a half years, Peoplelogic, has worked on building models and algorithms that provide critical early warning signs to businesses. These include employee attrition prediction as well as a standardized score for an organization’s overall health. So far, Peoplelogic has synthesized over 21 million employee interactions to better understand the intersection of team health and operational efficiency. …
“Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, Peoplelogic surfaces recommendations to leaders that indicate specific ways to improve team engagement, process effectiveness, and ultimately optimize and improve a company’s organizational health. One of the most intriguing features is StayFactor, a predictive score that indicates an employee’s likelihood to stay at a company—alternatively it provides an early warning sign of potential employee attrition.”
Schmidt previously was co-founder of DZone Media and AnswerHub, which was acquired in 2017 after cracking the INC 5000 list for fastest growing private companies over six straight years.
