LONDON, October 26, 2016
Digital employee engagement firm Perkbox has today secured £2.5m backing from VC Draper Esprit who invested on the same terms as other early-stage investors on equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs. Perkbox launched on Seedrs this Monday with a target of £1.5 million and has already overfunded to £4 million exceeding its crowdfunding target by 270%.
This is the first funding round for Perkbox since launch, when the founders made a decision to grow organically following a £350,000 investment secured at seed stage from Zoopla CEO Alex Chesterman and AC Sherry Coutu back in 2011, when it originally launched as Huddlebuy, a group-buying platform for SMEs.
Perkbox was conceived after the business pivoted three times to hone its offering of providing a digital engagement platform that enables companies of all sizes, including startups, to incentivise, motivate and attract staff through over 200 perks and benefits and a sophisticated rewards & recognition infrastructure.
Launched in 2015, the company already has over 300,000 paying members ranging from SMEs to large corporations such as British Gas and BUPA. Monthly recurring revenue has grown more than 10 times to £1.4m/month in 18 months, tripling sales in 2015 and expecting to triple sales again in 2016. The company’s goal is to achieve a turnover of £100 million in three years and become one of the UK’s largest software services for businesses.
The money raised from Draper Esprit and Seedrs investors will fast-track Perkbox’s mission to transform unhappy workplaces stateside and across Europe having seen the appetite for the scheme in the UK. The estimated global potential is £22 billion and Perkbox has its sights firmly set on tapping into these markets.
Perkbox was recently listed no. 2 in the Startups 100 Index for being one of the most innovative emerging ventures in the country.
Simon Cook, CEO, Draper Esprit, comments: “We are excited to be leading this growth round in Perkbox alongside a great angel group and the crowd. Employee motivation is a fundamental issue for today’s best companies, small and large, and the Perkbox digital platform is the best we have seen. Perkbox sits alongside other investments we have made in the customer satisfaction space, such as Trustpilot and Conversocial, while its growing focus on employee well being exists with companies such as Graze, Push Doctor and Lifesum.”
