The human resources department is a cornerstone of many organizations — they onboard new employees, handle worker disputes and are instrumental in establishing a company’s culture. But digitization has made HR a much more data-driven environment, and companies now need better tools to organize and use that data effectively.
On Wednesday, ChartHop, an NYC startup that does just that, announced it raised a $35 million Series B. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, an existing backer, and caps off a year of significant growth for the company.
“With HR and people functions so crucial to the growth and success of businesses, it’s unfortunate that most HR teams lack the critical people data to drive organizational decision making,” David Ulevitch, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in a statement. “ChartHop’s visual approach to people analytics allows leaders to make organizational planning and strategy decisions with confidence.”
ChartHop specializes in people analytics, a method that helps managers and executives make decisions about their workforce. Although it is a fairly new area of HR, about 70 percent of executives say it is a top priority at their company, according to management consulting giant McKinsey.
“The strategic elevation of the data-driven people leader is at hand. But strangely, technology for HR teams has lagged behind all other functions, despite the fact that a company’s most important asset is their people,” founder and CEO Ian White told Built In via email. “ChartHop is filling this void.”
It does this by bringing together various datasets including payroll, demographics, performance and engagement into one place. The platform then uses that data to make decisions about everything from headcount and scaling plans to compensation adjustments and employee engagement initiatives. Employees can visualize all this through org charts, graphs and real-time maps. Although the HR department owns the platform, this information can be accessed by anyone in the company.
White founded ChartHop in 2018, and the company has since built up a customer base of more than 130 companies, increasing revenue by nearly 20 percent month over month in the last year.
“The incredible demand we’ve seen shows that we’re addressing pains that companies are feeling as they try to thoughtfully manage their people,” White said. “At ChartHop, we believe that the right data in the right hands can provide context, alignment, and clarity for all employees at a company. This will make the employee experience so much better, which leads to happier people and better organizations.”
The company has also been growing quite a bit internally, going from one employee (White himself) to 70 in just 18 months. White says the company plans to hit a headcount of about 120 by the end of the year, then double that next year. The money will also be used to expand the product and fuel its go-to-market strategy.
