RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Organizations will spend nearly $1 billion on the “Future of Work” (FoW) in 2023, representing a growth of 18.8 percent from 2022, according to IDC. And more startups are developing FoW solutions to capture that growing market.
(Gartner describes the Future of Work as “changes in how work will get done over the next decade, influenced by technological, generational and social shifts.”)
The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) has responded to the FoW trend by announcing a new category of startups for their annual Venture Connect summit. At next month’s event, nine startups will debut in the new “Future of Work” vertical.
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I spoke with Hunter Young, Head of Capital for CED, about this new vertical and what the “Future of Work” means to CED.
“Employers are facing a magnitude of personnel challenges from the Great Resignation and mass layoffs, as well as a tight labor market fueling rising compensation requirements,” said Young. “We are seeing many entrepreneurs that are delivering solutions to help mitigate the cost of employee turnover by helping to identify the optimal candidates faster, and then increasing retention by also keeping workers engaged in their jobs as distributed and remote organizations become more normalized.”
I also spoke with Stephanie Nieman, a local investor and a CED Board Member, who told me that “growing employer prioritization on attracting, retaining and developing their talent bases” has led to more investor interest in the category.
“Investing in innovation within employer/employee relationships and productivity, and in how individuals gain greater job opportunities, is definitely not new,” said Nieman. “But the term ‘future of work’ has become more popular in recent years, reflecting the growing importance of talent as a strategic asset within companies and acknowledging that the way people work continues to change.”
Nieman is the Managing Director at Leeds Illuminate, a growth equity fund with offices in Chapel Hill and New York City that invests in education and workforce development companies.
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Future of Work Startups at Venture Connect 2023
Nine startups will be in the “Future of Work” vertical at VC2023. Here’s a quick description of each one, adapted from the profiles on CED’s website:
- All Elements – reinventing people management for workplaces in traditional industries.
- BlueRecruit – a direct-hire marketplace for skilled-trade workers who want to build their careers and the companies desperate their talent.
- Boulo – a success platform for working mothers, matching our >12,000 members with flexible jobs, offering our progressive learning platform and curating a marketplace of supportive solutions.
- Essential Personnel – a B2G SaaS workforce management and safety/wellness solution built for public safety agencies that enables leaders to track and identify personnel data that is most critical to maintaining accountability, high-morale, and the readiness of their organization.
- Happyly – the employee connection and wellness platform supporting the intersection of work and life that empowers companies to create a connected culture resulting in greater productivity, morale, and retention.
- Ivy Clinicians – the simplest way for physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners to find jobs they love, Ivy is a two-sided marketplace matching verified clinicians with medical practices, starting with the emergency medicine specialty.
- Peoplelogic – the leader in automatic employee engagement and retention – no surveys needed – with patented technology that optimizes your organization’s health with actionable and timely insights right from everyday tools that transform the employee experience, retain your best people and, most importantly, de-risk revenue growth.
- Suggestion Ox – the employee feedback platform that helps leaders learn the candid truth about what their people are thinking about, using the power of anonymity and a dose of psychological safety.
- Zinnia – helps distributed teams come together easily, impactfully, and always on budget, with proprietary software that reduces offsite and client EBC planning from hundreds of hours to just a few clicks.
I asked Nieman what investors look for when evaluating companies in the FoW vertical. She told me that a trend she’s excited about is increasing workforce access.
“We’re seeing the way individuals think about work and even the definition of what it means to have a job dramatically change,” said Nieman. “Technology has enabled individuals to gain greater autonomy and choice of where, when and how they engage with work and generate incomes.”
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She told me that flexible labor marketplaces models, like platforms that support freelance work or the “gig economy,” help to increase workforce access by “better matching existing labor supply and demand to meet individual preferences.”
She also said the tools are “increasing the labor supply pool” by supporting candidates who can’t—or don’t want to—participate in traditional full-time or in-person workplaces.
The 2023 Venture Connect Summit will showcase a record-high 180 startups and feature a tailgate celebration, and community members can purchase tickets for the full two-day event or just the celebration. For more information, visit cednc.org/venture-connect.
