LONDON, October 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
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."
The campaign remains open for funding on Seedrs.
- ENDS -
Notes to editors:
About Perkbox
Perkbox is a cloud-based employee perks and engagement platform
for business of all sizes, giving employers and employees a range
of great perks, social reward and recognition tools and health and
wellness platforms that help employers promote the financial,
emotional and physical wellbeing of their team.
Perkbox was set up with the belief that the best companies to
work for look after their teams and value their staff. The
most successful businesses are comprised of people who are engaged,
satisfied and loyal. Providing perks and engagement tools helps
build stronger teams and incentivises workers to aspire to
greatness.
Until recently, only large corporations could afford to pay for
employee perks. Perkbox's easy and wholly customised offering
allows SMEs to reward and incentivise their growing team with perks
that help build a happy work culture with an investment in line
with their budgets.
For more information about Perkbox and interviews / image
requests contact:
Andrea San Pedro, PR Director, tel: 07891 625928, email:
andrea@perkbox.co.uk
About Draper Espirt
Draper Esprit (http://www.draperesprit.com) was founded in 2006,
and is one of the largest and most active VC firms in Europe, helping entrepreneurs to build global
ground-breaking technology companies. In 2016 it moved its primary
funds into a listed PLC model (LSE: GROW.L) in order to take a
longer term, multi-stage, patient capital approach. In recent
years, Draper Esprit's exits have generated more than $3 billion in combined enterprise value. Draper
Esprit is the exclusive European member of the Silicon Valley-based
Draper Global Network with offices around the world, with portfolio
companies including Baidu, Skype, Space X, Tesla and Yammer and
other world leading companies.