15Five, a software company focused on producing transparency and alignment in organizations through structured, efficient and effective communication practices, announced today that it has secured a total of $1 million in seed funding from Richmond Global, a seed- and early-stage venture capital firm. 15Five announced additional investment participation from 500 Startups, David Sacks (Founder, Yammer), John Ham (Founder, USTREAM), Jason Calacanis (Founder, Mahalo/LAUNCH) and Ben Parr (Co-founder, #DOMINATEFUND and Former Editor, Mashable), Matt Brezina , founder of Xobni (and now CEO of Sincerely) and Ben Ling (Google, YouTube, Facebook).
Headquartered in San Francisco, 15Five is a new subscription-based SaaS company that officially unveiled its product last March and launched out of beta phase in August 2012. The company helps CEOs and managers capture a snapshot of their team’s progress throughout a typical workweek on a conversational, cloud platform.
The idea behind 15Five is simple: Employees take 15 minutes to write their answers to customized questions chosen by a company’s higher-ups for a weekly report that encourages honesty and transparency. Business managers then spend five minutes to review and comment on the answers before rolling up the report and sending the highlights to the CEO, or other high-level executives, at the company. With this time-saving aggregated report, the CEO is able to quickly unearth successes and problems while communicating bigger picture goals back to the team.
“There is a really big market opportunity right now and we are excited to partner with both Richmond Global, Ben Parr and all of our other investors,” said 15Five CEO David Hassell . “All of these investors bring a lot of business world experience to the table and there’s synchronicity in what we’re all doing. Building on our earlier success, this funding will allow 15Five to expand our marketing and product development efforts, as well as accelerate our ability to reach more customers.”
Richmond Global’s Steven Dupree said his investment firm is thrilled to back the 15Five team. “15Five is an elegant solution to a complex communication problem in organizations,” said Dupree. “In minutes, any middle manager in any company can begin using 15Five to stay connected, uncover problems and discover new ideas across his or her team. It’s user-friendly technology that works immediately without involvement from IT, HR or the executive team. Ultimately, we’re confident that David Hassell and the 15Five team can build a franchise of simple tools — frictionless to implement — that address common organizational challenges.”
Ben Parr , Co-Founder of the #DOMINATEFUND, said his company is excited about the 15Five investment opportunity. “15Five is going to dominate, no question,” Parr said. “David and his team know what it takes to build a product and company that will change the way we think of human capital management. We’re thrilled to be backing such dedicated entrepreneurs.”
For more information, visit www.15Five.com.
About 15Five
15Five is a software company focused on producing transparency and alignment in organizations through structured, efficient and effective communication practices. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company officially unveiled its product in March 2012, and launched out of beta phase in August 2012. 15Five is based on a simple idea: Have each employee spend 15 minutes a week writing a report that takes their manager no more than five minutes to read. For more information, visit www.15Five.com.
