inFeedo raises $700K from Y-Combinator and others

inFeedo, a SaaS-based people analytics start-up, has closed a round of funding with Y Combinator along with Indian founders and CEOs as investors, raising $700,000.

YC, a leading start-up accelerator globally and known to have a lower acceptance rate than Harvard University, backed inFeedo as one of the few growing start-ups in its Summer 2020 batch, happening remotely due to the ongoing pandemic.

With this fundraise, inFeedo's short term vision is to double down on hiring to fill up key management roles from COO, CMO to CTO who can scale up the organisation to rapidly expand its customer base and generate $10 million in revenue. The future product roadmap includes enhanced capabilities to engage remote workforces, leadership and manager effectiveness, and ability to run pulse surveys.

Interestingly, a key component of the YC program will be Demo Day where companies in the batch can pitch to several global venture capitalists and investors for possible strategic acquisitions as well. The long-term product vision however is to fill the employee wellness gap still prevalent across organizations by creating a pro-mental health AI-enabled solution.

Along with YC CEO Michael Seibel as Partner, the investors who joined the round include Dr. Ritesh Malik (Founder at OYO-acquired innov8), Peyush Bansal (CEO at Lenskart), Vinod Muthukrishnan (CEO at Cisco-acquired Cloudcherry), Anand Chandrasekaran (Former Snapdeal CPO and Facebook Director), Sunder Nookala (CEO at OC Tanner-acquired Kwench) and Anil Advani (CEO at Inventus Law) and 100x Entrepreneur Fund that led an oversubscribed syndicate via LetsVenture.

"In spite of running a cash flow positive business, our main aim to fundraise during the pandemic was to double down in South-East Asia and build a leadership team that helps customers remotely connect with their employees better and come out of Covid-19 stronger than before," said CEO and founder Tanmaya Jain.

inFeedo's employee experience bot ‘Amber’ launched in 2016 aims to help HR functions across global organizations measure employee engagement, analyse individual employee and organizational sentiment, predict attrition, and highlight insights on culture. Amber being artificially intelligent (AI) exercises empathy to not just ask but also respond to employees at different touch points. Her predictive analytics-enabled dashboard helps HR glean quick actionable insights in real-time. Amber's recent feat includes doubling the average tenure from 1.5 years to 3.02 years across global BFSI organizations she serves.

This year, the company is focussed on expanding into the South-East Asia market and take on competitors like Glint which recently got acquired by LinkedIn. Since its inception in 2013, inFeedo has notably challenged industry behemoths like AON, Great Place to Work At, Mercer and their status quo of engaging employees using traditional methods like annual surveys. inFeedo has users in more than 50 countries with over 100 customers including enterprises like Airtel, GE Healthcare, Nivea, Lenovo, AXA Affin General Insurance, Tata Group, Unilever, Puma, OYO, to name a few.