When I Work Raises $15 Million Series B to Help Hourly Employees and Their Managers Schedule Work More Effectively
Company Develops New Solutions Aimed at the Hourly Workforce Following Success of Scheduling and Attendance Products
ST. PAUL, Minn. — (June 8, 2016) — When I Work, the easiest way to schedule, track time and communicate with hourly employees, today secured $15 million in a Series B round led by Drive Capital with participation from Arthur Ventures and High Alpha. The Series B follows a $9 million Series A led by e.ventures, Greycroft Partners and Arthur Ventures, bringing the company’s total financing to date to $24 million. When I Work serves businesses that manage hourly workers and shift-based work schedules—from small brick-and-mortar businesses with 10-person teams, all the way up to 10,000-employee enterprises. The company’s customers include a wide cross section of industries, including everything from healthcare and hospitality to restaurants, retail and service-based organizations. The new funds will be used to aggressively acquire engineering, product, and sales and marketing talent. The company also plans to continue developing more customer-inspired functionality within its products, and create new collaboration and communications tools purpose-built for the hourly workforce, filling a gap where such innovation has otherwise been reserved solely for desk-based workers. “The vast majority of collaboration tools and technologies today are built for salaried employees working in an office setting, which represents just 40 percent of the entire U.S. workforce. The other 60 percent of working Americans, roughly 77 million workers, are all hourly employees,” said Chad Halvorson, CEO of When I Work. “Tools like Slack and HipChat are great, but they are fundamentally focused on improving collaboration between people that sit behind a desk. We think there’s a massive opportunity to build tools that improve collaboration on core business operations that serve everyone else. Our Series B funding gives us the runway to aggressively invest in our product suite and bring some much-needed innovation to a primarily offline industry.” Since its launch in 2010, the company has experienced record year-over-year growth, tripling its customers base for the past three years in a row, and growing revenue by a multiple of 10 in the past two years alone. Today, more than 50,000 workplaces rely on When I Work for employee scheduling, time clock tracking and employee communications, representing two million employees and over half a billion hours worked. “When I Work’s traction speaks for itself. The team built an exemplary product that addresses all-too-common operational issues for the hourly worker and employer alike,” said Nick Solaro, partner at Drive Capital. “We’re proud to lead the Series B and we’re excited to join Chad and team on this journey to better serve hourly workers and their employers.” The When I Work platform currently offers two core products: Scheduling and Time & Attendance. Together, the tools allow managers to quickly and easily create or update work schedules, approve shift change requests, drops, time off, track payroll expenses, reduce overtime and communicate with employees all in one place. “Managing schedules for a team of more than 75 hourly employees used to require about four hours per week for each of our managers, but with When I Work we’re able to orchestrate everyone’s schedules in about 30 minutes and quickly alert our team of upcoming shifts by phone,” said John Abdo, president of Minnesota-based MyBurger. “Switching from a paper-based scheduling system not only frees up my time to focus on more pressing operational needs, it also creates a better culture through greater engagement and accountability across the entire team.” When I Work is mobile-first with Android and iOS apps that enable employees to request time off, trade shifts with coworkers, set their availability, clock in and out for shifts and get reminders about upcoming shifts. “We are bullish on Chad and his team and delighted to be investing in When I Work,” said Scott Dorsey, managing partner at High Alpha. “Hourly employees now expect to collaborate and communicate with their employers from their own personal devices, regardless of their position. When I Work has built a robust solution that’s poised to solve this problem, catering to a massively unserved market that is eager to come online.” Join companies like Uber, Tesla, Ben & Jerry’s, Select Medical, Columbus Zoo, and Winmark already all using When I Work. To learn more, or to sign up, visit http://wheniwork.com. About When I Work: When I Work is the easiest way to schedule, track time and communicate with hourly employees. Over 50,000 workplaces worldwide rely on When I Work to make sure they have the right people, at the right place, at the right time. When I Work improves employee-manager relationships while removing the common inefficiencies of managing hourly teams—making teams more efficient, more accountable and better prepared. In five minutes business owners and managers can start using When I Work’s simple, mobile-first solution, no IT required. Read the full press release on BusinessWire.
