Multitudes, a SaaS product that helps teams improve culture and performance, has raised $1.7M USD to build their beta product in a round led by Blackbird Ventures. Other investors include Ellen Pao (CEO of Project Include; former CEO of Reddit), Jon Williams (co-founder of Culture Amp and Pyn), and other founder-angels in the AI/ML and HR Tech spaces. Using data that companies already have, Multitudes provide insights and coaching so managers can create happier, higher-performing teams. The New Zealand-based company launched an alpha product with customers earlier this year and has since seen early wins, with team leads identifying blind spots, shifting behavior, and improving team performance.
The founder of Multitudes, Lauren Peate, has seen first-hand how team culture impacts performance; the product was born from her frustration at seeing how easy it is for leaders to miss issues in their teams. Lauren has worked at the intersection of culture and performance throughout her career, from consulting for Fortune 500 tech companies while at Bain & Co. in San Francisco, to working with young startups in the Middle East as COO and advisor, and finally to founding Ally Skills NZ, a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultancy in New Zealand. Lauren says, “Managers have a lot on their plates; between that and the systemic biases we all have, everyone has blind spots. We show managers new insights about their teams and support them to improve performance and culture. We’re all better off when we unlock the full potential of our teams.”
One of their first customers is Mathew Hartley, CTO of an EdTech company called Storypark. Mathew shared that “The data from Multitudes has helped us raise the right questions within our team and see the bigger picture. We’re now able to back our hunches with data to present to our senior leadership team and quickly relieve any bottlenecks.” Using Multitudes, Storypark identified that support for their senior developers was a key area to focus on. Within a month, they had increased the amount of peer feedback to senior developers, and within two months, they decreased their cycle time by 30% – meaning that the work got done faster.
In what was an oversubscribed round, the Multitudes team was delighted to bring in experienced, values-aligned investors from the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. Lauren states, “Our investors recognize the link between culture and performance, and they bring relevant experience in HR Tech, AI/ML technologies, scaling global B2B/enterprise businesses, and creating inclusive workplaces.” The lead investor was Blackbird Ventures; Tip Piumsomboon, Principal at Blackbird Ventures, shared that the firm was attracted to the company’s purpose and leadership. Tip says, “We love Multitude’s mission of empowering new generations of managers to improve feedback culture and transparency, using the data they already have. Lauren is a rare breed of founder, with strong instincts and a deep understanding of her customers while executing on product at a lightning speed. Her passion hits you in the face and she’s an incredible magnet for talent and an evangelist for her cause.”
Lauren also notes that New Zealand was the perfect place to launch this company into the world. Lauren says, “With New Zealand getting COVID under control so quickly, we’ve been able to hire from a highly-skilled pool of Kiwis returning from around the world.”
Multitudes will use their investment to build their beta product and expand their customer base. This will include deepening their analysis about the intersection of team behavior and performance, as well as building in more features around goal-setting, tracking, and recommendations for what to try next. If you’re excited about what they’re building, sign up for early access to their beta program: https://form.typeform.com/to/VPWt81Qh.
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