WorkAngel scores $5 mln Series A

WorkAngel, a London-based employee recognition and reward platform, has received $5 million in Series A funding. Former Tesco CEO Terry Leahy led the round. In addition to the funding, BBC Worldwide CEO Tim Davie and Jon Claydon have been added to WorkAngel’s board of directors.

PRESS RELEASE

London Monday 19th January 2015: London-based employee reward and recognition platform WorkAngel (www.workangel.com) has closed a $5 million Series A funding round as it prepares to fully release its innovative, mobile-focused reward and recognition technology in the UK market after a year in private beta.

WorkAngel is the brainchild of leading technology entrepreneur Jamie True. True’s last project was mobile technology agency Grapple*, launched in 2010 and acquired by Monitise for $50 million in September 2013.

Former Tesco CEO Terry Leahy is the lead investor in the funding round with Bob Willett, Chairman of MetaPack Ltd & Eagle Eye PLC, Bill Currie and Iain McDonald of William Currie Group and Lord David Alliance all participating. BBC Worldwide CEO Tim Davie and advertising industry doyen Jon Claydon join the company’s board of directors.

“The voluntary benefits market has been unchallenged for over a decade,” said Jamie True, CEO and Founder. “During that time technology has fundamentally re-written what can be achieved in the space. WorkAngel deploys the latest mobile technology to drive structural increases in the number of engaged, productive employees, offering a system of recognition and reward that’s both easy and incredibly cost-effective to implement and manage.”

WorkAngel is a state-of-the-art, mobile-first technology platform that uniquely combines:
-a personalised, technologically optimised voluntary benefits platform aggregating market-leading and highly targeted staff discounts on goods and services
-an inter-company private social network designed to allow organisations of any size to collaborate more efficiently and securely, and managers to implement a fast, seamless and cost-effective system for driving performance and reward

The WorkAngel Benefits offering provides cashback and discount deals at more than 1,200 online retailers and 6,000 UK restaurants, as well as cashback on local offers from websites such as Groupon and Living Social and in-store purchases from 25 major UK retailers. WorkAngel discount partners include Amazon (exclusively), Apple, Groupon, Nike, M&S and House of Fraser.

Employee retention and morale is now one of the biggest single issues that companies face. Recent research from Gallup (http://www.gallup.com/services/178517/state-global-workplace.aspx) identified that nearly nine out of 10 workers globally are “not engaged” in their jobs.

“Disengaged employees are not only a problem for individual companies; research shows they’re now a problem for the whole economy,” said True. “Engaged employees are self-evidently far more likely to drive innovation and growth, yet the voluntary benefits space has been unchallenged for years. We’ve found a high level of client disillusionment with existing solutions. Often there’s a scheme in place but staff simply aren’t using or engaging with it. That’s a huge missed opportunity,” said True.

“We believe WorkAngel is the first genuinely 21st Century Voluntary Benefits solution; drawing on the advances and learning’s from technology and social media over recent years to create a product that’s faster, cheaper, easier and, just as importantly, more fun and engaging to use. Our point-of-difference is that we are a technology company operating in the Voluntary Benefits space – not a Benefits company attempting to keep pace with technology.”

Having operated its platform in stealth mode for the past 12 months, the company has seen high levels of engagement and substantially increased levels of usage and redemption among several household-name companies.

“After an extensive Beta test phase, we firmly believe companies of any size will see clear, immediate and measurable advantages from using WorkAngel,” said Jon Claydon, Chairman of WorkAngel.

After its official launch in the UK market in February 2015 with several marquee-name clients, WorkAngel plans to launch its platform in the US market later this year.

About WorkAngel: Founded in January 2013, WorkAngel (www.workangel.com) is aiming to change how companies large and small think about employee engagement and improve staff retention. Its mobile-first platform offers communication, collaboration and social recognition tools for businesses, combining this with a bespoke employee benefits and rewards programme. CEO and Founder Jamie True is a serial entrepreneur and Founder of Monitise Create.

*Now trading as Monitise Create