, the Chicago-based maker of an employee engagement and development platform used by companies like Patagonia, Allianz and Cision, announced this morning it has closed a $7.6 million Series A round of funding.
The round, which was led by Chicago’s KDWC and joined by existing investors including CNTP and Lightbank, followed a year of 300 percent growth for the company, which has raised $19 million to date.
“HighGround’s offering is incredibly well-timed with market demand,” KDWC partner Chris Capps said in a statement. “Businesses are craving new solutions that increase employee engagement levels and modernize performance management communication within a corporation. The platform boosts productivity, morale and employee satisfaction levels.”
The company plans to use the funding to expand its sales and marketing efforts, and to continue improving its cloud-based HR platform, which lets employees create their own goals, recognize each other’s accomplishments and share their opinions with managers, who in turn can track their employees’ career progressions and aggregate a history of interactions.
The company’s platform has been well received by its customers.
“HighGround is a platform that drives engagement, feedback, recognition and development,” said Kent Frazier, VP of talent for Lieberman Research Worldwide in a statement. “We’re able to archive those interactions on the platform so it’s not a once-a-year conversation that everyone dreads. HighGround is helpful in companies making the shift from an annual conversation to something that happens everyday.”
Founded in 2012, HighGround raised two rounds for a combined $3.5 million back in 2013 and an $8 million round in 2014. Last year, the company saw its customer base grow over 200 percent. Founder and CEO Vip Sandhir attributes HighGround’s success to its broad-based approach to employee engagement.
“Many point solutions are emerging in the engagement and performance management space, but most are only addressing a slice of the business problem,” Sandhir said in a statement. “KDWC’s investment is a strong endorsement of our technology and approach.”
Images via HighGround.
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