SocialChorus Gets $12.5 Million Funding to Bolster Workforce Communications Technology

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By Sudipto Ghosh On May 29, 2018

Latest Funding for SocialChorus Follows Tremendous Growth and Significant Momentum with New Customers, Executive Hires, and Global Expansion

Today, SocialChorus, a global workforce communications platform, announced that it has secured $12.5 million in growth financing co-led by B2B software specialist Arrowroot Capital and Kohlberg Ventures, with participation from Western Technology Investment.

Employee Communications Is a Central Part of the Digital Transformation

At the time of this announcement, “Digital transformation needs to be built on top of modern employee communications,” said Gary Nakamura, CEO of SocialChorus.

Gary added, “Employee communications is a central part of the digital transformation. When enterprise leaders want to be heard, communicating solely via email and decades-old intranets won’t work. And when companies add more communications tools, like enterprise social networks or collaboration tools, they get more silos, not fewer. SocialChorus brings the silos together to give leaders and communicators a way to unify and nurture a more aligned workforce.”

SocialChorus Has Modernized the Way a Global C-Suite Reaches Its Mobile and Dispersed Workforce

SocialChorus has consistently achieved strong growth and has built a capital-efficient business, fueled by demand from the largest enterprises worldwide and global communicators’ need for a modern solution to deliver critical news and information to every employee — from office workers to desk-less and front-line workers.

“SocialChorus has developed a mission-critical platform that has modernized the way a global C-suite reaches its mobile and dispersed workforce,” said Kareem El Sawy, partner at Arrowroot Capital and SocialChorus board member.

Kareem added, “With a proven track record of success and growth, the company has a massive market opportunity to help communicators deliver on the promise of employee alignment and connectedness. We’re excited to invest in a company defining the next generation of workplace communications.”

SocialChorus has grown its workforce communications platform business by over 120 percent in the last year, adding many global enterprise customers including USAA, Phillips 66, Cargill, Sound Physicians, American Cancer Society, Kohler Co., Lendlease, Lloyds Bank, TD Bank, PG&E and Lincoln Financial Group. Employees using the SocialChorus platform come from more than 20 different industries in 180 countries, all 50 U.S. states, and 6,400 U.S. cities.

Mproving Employee Experience Is One of the Foundational Aspects Driving Digital Transformation

Improving employee experience is one of the foundational aspects driving digital transformation. Modernizing communications is a critical, and increasingly urgent initiative as companies are faced with mounting challenges, from brand reputation to employee retention, due to a lack of synchronized communications.

Several trends are driving these challenges:

Increasing diversity of the workforce

Today organizations employ a mix of knowledge workers and desk-less, distributed employees. According to the Deloitte 2018 Global Human Capital Trends report of 11,000 HR and business leaders, companies are forecasting around one-third of their employees will be freelancers or “gig workers” in the next few years. Organizations need solutions to align and engage these employees to meet business objectives.

Changing expectations around employee communications

As demographics of the workforce shift, so have employee expectations. According to a 2017 study, Gen Z, and millennials expect and want greater company transparency and prefer personalized messaging, video and highly engaging content.

Transparency is key

According to the Deloitte study, transparency is a major topic affecting corporate and brand reputation in 2018: “Engagement with other stakeholders on topics such as diversity, gender pay equity, income inequality, immigration, and climate change can lift financial performance and brand value, while failing to engage can destroy reputation and alienate key audiences.”

A plethora of technology tools exist to power enterprise communications and collaboration, but none of these tools serves the needs of the communicator, who is tasked with deploying and delivering a communications strategy that enriches every employee’s experience irrespective of their role or location. According to a SocialChorus survey of 331 communications and HR professionals, 97 percent of respondents said they faced challenges with legacy communications tools; 25 percent said they had no a role in selecting a platform to serve their needs and just 4 percent drove platform selection entirely.

SocialChorus operates the only purpose-built platform for HR and communicators. In less than two minutes a day, employees stay connected and get the news and information they need to feel informed. Additionally, SocialChorus’ Program Studio gives communicators the ability to aggregate both internal and external sources of news and information such as video, articles, links, notes and images, and systematically plan and program distribution across an enterprise’s multiple channels including SharePoint, Slack and Workplace by Facebook.

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To support company growth, SocialChorus has also opened a London office and made several significant hires, including Cyrus Gilbert-Rolfe as managing director, EMEA; Dave Lutz as vice president of client strategy and success; and Alison Murdock as chief marketing officer.

Currently, SocialChorus allows communicators to publish once and distribute everywhere—efficiently delivering critical information to the right employee at the right time.