In the tech industry at least, it seems like the pressure for companies to provide “perks” to their employees has never been higher. But oftentimes, startups don’t have the ability to provide the same level of perks as larger established corporations do. That’s where AnyPerk, a startup itself, wants to help.
AnyPerk, which makes a platform aimed at letting companies of all sizes deliver perks and discounts to their employees, is announcing today it has raised $8.5 million in new funding.
The funding round, which is AnyPerk’s Series A, was led by led by DCM Ventures with participation from Digital Garage. As part of the funding, DCM partner Osuke Honda will join AnyPerk’s board of directors. This brings the total amount of money invested in AnyPerk to more than $13 million.
The new money comes as AnyPerk is purportedly seeing swift growth: The company’s CEO Taro Fukuyama says they’ve grown by more than 200 percent since their seed round closed this past summer, and the company now has “hundreds” of clients in the U.S. AnyPerk, which first launched out of Y Combinator in 2012, is based in San Francisco and currently has 45 employees.
The company tells me they’ll be using the funding to build out a mobile app to push out notifications about relevant perks to employees who may not know they have them (for example, employees of Lyft, an AnyPerk client, would be notified of their 40 percent off AMC Theater ticket discount when they’re at the movies.) Also, the company is working on a beta feature that will let managers or colleagues give spot bonuses in the form of money or gift cards by using the AnyPerk platform.
It bears mention that AnyPerk is not the only company in the perks-as-a-platform world. A few years back, a company called BetterWorks raised $10.5 million for a similar concept, but ultimately shut down in May 2012. The idea has had more lasting success in Asia, where Singapore-based Rewardz, Japan-based Benefit One, and Malaysia-based PerkPool are all notable players. Now, with its new funding and apparent momentum, AnyPerk hopes to be the company that can successfully bring the business model here to the U.S. to stay.