Co-founded by former Atlassian HR Head, Pyn has strong ties to the Australian software developer behind Trello and Jira
Australian startup Pyn, which has built an employee communication platform, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding, the company announced in a statement on Monday.
The funding was led by General Partner at Accel Partners Rich Wong, with participation from Skip Capital and Atlassian President Jay Simons, according to the statement.
Rich Wong, who had led the first $60 million investment in Atlassian, the creator of team collaboration platforms Jira and Trello, 10 years ago, will join the startup’s Board of Directors as part of the deal, according to Business Insider.
Pyn was founded in late 2019 by former HR Head at Atlassian, Squarespace and Typeform, Joris Luijke and Co-founder of Culture Amp Jon Williams, and aims to solve communication challenges in complex and remote organizations, especially amid the new work-from-home norm.
According to Williams, companies use sophisticated tools to communicate with customers, yet employee communication tools are cluttered and lagging.
Pyn’s program helps cut through the noise of multiple notifications and messages and provides tools that marketing has used for years, such as personalization, scheduling, and automated triggering. It claims to combat information overload by sending only relevant messages to relevant people, only when they need it, thereby providing more clarity.
“We basically scan for information. Every time something happens, we can send the right information to the right person at the right time,” Luijke told Business Insider.
With employees around the world working remotely, it has become harder to keep track of important moments like co-workers’ birthdays, especially when they are scattered across timezones. According to the startup, their program allows employees to automatically receive helpful messages at key moments like promotions or birthdays, and boost company communication.
“If it’s Freddy’s birthday and they’re sitting right next to you and they’ve got balloons up and stuff like that, as a manager you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s Freddy’s birthday.’ But it’s really hard, if everyone is scattered around the world, to keep track of those things,” Luijke added.
Wong told Business Insider, “The need was always there to be able to work across multiple locations. But now, because COVID and shelter-in-place, I think what you’re seeing is now there’s a second wave of companies. They are the follow-ons to wave one, of Zoom, and Slack.”
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