15Five, an early provider of continuous performance management software, closed a $30.7 million Series B round. The investment was led by Next47, a Siemens venture firm, and brings 15Five’s total capital raised to $42.6 million.
The company will use the money to push its expansion efforts, scale sales and marketing and invest “heavily” in continued product development. In addition, the company expects to more than double its 2018 headcount to a total of 190 employees by the end of 2019.
With $31 million new dollars, @15Five plans heavy product development and further expansion. #HR #HRTech #HRBiz Click To Tweet15Five’s strategy is based on what it calls a “best-self management approach,” which it says is drawn from research in organizational development and positive psychology. Using the approach, leaders build cultures and introduce practices that support people as they become, and continue to be, their “best selves.” The process begins by setting at least one personal development objective and combining it with other objective and key results. To support all this, 15Five offers features such as weekly check-ins and one-on-ones.
Next47 Partner Matthew Cowan said 15Five offers “a simple yet elegant technology solution that reflects the needs of the modern day employee.” As millennials become a larger portion of the workforce, organizations like “Siemens and the customers they serve are rethinking how they manage their employees.”
15Five’s founder and CEO, David Hassell, has long been a believer in dynamic conversations between employees and management. He advocates for HR to be more active in facilitating useful exchanges.
“Our most successful customers have HR departments or some other manager who ‘owns’ 15Five,” he said during a 2018 HCM Technology Report roundtable. “That’s literally part of their job description, and they manage everything from filtering out stale employee feedback questions to using survey responses to make an impact at the company, to gently nudging mid-level managers to create their quarterly objectives or finalize their latest reviews cycle.”
Also participating in the round were Matrix Partners, PointNine Capital, the LAUNCH Fund, Newground Ventures, Bling Capital, Chaifetz Group and Origin Ventures, which led 15Five’s Series A round. The company’s customers include Hubspot, Spotify and Credit Karma. Its integration partners include Slack, BambooHR, Namely and Zapier.
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Image: 15Five
