Stakeholder Labs is changing the way companies manage their digital communities and proving that customers who are shareholders have higher lifetime value and lower churn.
Stakeholder Labs, an enterprise software company helping businesses measure and increase retail investor engagement, announced that it has raised $4.2M in a seed funding round led by Seven Seven Six.
Co-investors include Greycroft, Elefund, Caffeinated Capital, Plug and Play Tech Center, Witz Ventures, 1Flourish Capital, and FinSight Ventures.
Over recent years retail investing has exploded, and according to Reuters, there are now over 100M online brokerage accounts driving up to 32% of total U.S. equity volume. Digitally native retail investors are generating valuable data that is not being captured by issuers and these investors have shown a willingness to share that data if it leads to a more personalized shareholder experience.
“These retail investors aren’t just looking for financial returns but also deeper emotional connections with the companies they’re investing in and an opportunity to express their loyalty in a multitude of ways. We’re incredibly excited about the approach Stakeholder Labs is taking.”
Read More: Using Value Selling to Stay Afloat in Turbulent Economic Waters
“Since joining Reddit in 2016, I’ve had an opportunity to observe retail shareholders emerge as a force in our global financial system and companies are missing the tools necessary to navigate this rapidly changing landscape,” said Matt Joanou, Co-Founder and CEO of Stakeholder Labs. “We’re developing an ownership operating system that gives investor relations and marketing professionals the ability to more accurately identify, measure, and manage their most valuable retail shareholders.”
Stakeholder Labs was co-founded by a team of seasoned technologists and community builders with experience from Reddit, Google, Nike, and YouTube and is supported by a network of leading investors who have worked side by side with the founders over the last decade.
“A new generation has discovered investing through platforms like Reddit and they’re demanding software that makes it cheaper, faster, and generally more community oriented,” said Alexis Ohanian, Founder of Reddit, Seven Seven Six, and lead investor in Stakeholder Labs. “These retail investors aren’t just looking for financial returns but also deeper emotional connections with the companies they’re investing in and an opportunity to express their loyalty in a multitude of ways. We’re incredibly excited about the approach Stakeholder Labs is taking.”
“Over the course of my career as a People leader and investor, I’ve had an opportunity to use corporate equity to incentivize employee participation, loyalty, and financial returns,” said Katelin Holloway, Founding Partner of Seven Seven Six. “We led Stakeholder Labs’ seed round because we believe there is a huge opportunity to apply the power of equity to incentivize community building and customer action. Alexis and I share the team’s vision for how to approach this challenge.”
Stakeholder Labs is deploying its flagship product, Roundtable, with leading consumer focused companies enabling them to verify their retail investors, measure their customer loyalty, and offer unique shareholder rewards proven to increase lifetime customer value. Stakeholder Labs incubated Roundtable with small cap companies, including Skybound, a global hit entertainment company that has raised over $12M from 4700 retail investors since launching its Regulation A+ crowdfund in December, 2022.
“When we started Skybound in 2010, we quickly became fans of our fans and have been constantly exploring new ways to interact with them through our content distribution,” said David Alpert, CEO of Skybound Entertainment on behalf of business partners Jon Goldman and Robert Kirkman. “We wanted to be an early customer and investor in Stakeholder Labs and use their technology to engage our thousands of new retail investors and offer them meaningful ways to experience our over 150 intellectual properties.”
Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Mikel Lindsaar, CEO & Founder of StoreConnect