A Scottish tech platform that specialises in improving workplace productivity has landed a £1m investment deal as it prepares to scale up.
Trickle is set expand its team, increase its presence in the private sector and add features to its platform to enable more inclusive communication across organisations.
The company, led by founder and CEO Paul Reid, secured the investment in a funding round led by Equity Gap, London venture capital firm NoBa Capital and Scottish Enterprise.
Trickle’s customers include NHS Scotland, NHS England, CGI, and Johnston Carmichael.
Reid said: “We look forward to continuing our growth plans with the support of our investors, and we’re seeing significant opportunities to work with more companies in the private sector.
“Overall, organisations realise there are innovative ways to establish and sustain a culture of trust and positivity, and that this will pay dividends in terms of efficiency, retention, ground-up innovation, and the bottom line.”
Gallup’s 2023 State of Global Workplace report indicates that the UK has one of the least engaged workforces in Europe, ranking 33 out of 38 among peer countries.
Trickle’s platform works by empowering team members to share ‘honest, timely, anonymous feedback’, which is translated into actionable activity and measurable outcomes, fostering an organisation’s ‘culture of engagement, and boosting overall productivity’.
Fraser Lusty, managing director, Equity Gap said: “Paul and the Trickle team have made considerable commercial progress, with their technology increasingly adopted across the public and private sectors helping to solve challenges that every organisation faces, and we’re excited to support the business during its next phase of growth.”
Vanesa Pazos, Founding Partner, NoBa Capital, said: “Our mission is to support early-stage tech companies focused on worker-centric solutions that shape the Future of Work. We are passionate about using technology to enhance transparency, fairness, and equal opportunities for workers. Managers gaining insights into employee sentiment for actionable improvements is crucial. We’re excited to support Trickle in building commercial success with their platform based on this approach.”
Recent appointments at the company include Mark Mountford joining as CFO, Rebecca Christensen’s hire as CMO, and Victoria Mackie’s promotion to customer wellbeing Lead. Last year, Amanda Kerley joined Trickle’s leadership team as COO, having previously headed the company’s customer wellbeing unit.
Kerley added: “Three of our big themes include promoting transparency, enhancing psychological safety, and addressing whistleblowing, and we’ve built the option for a robust anonymity feature into the product along these lines.
“Essentially, we’re matching what our customers say they want most from Trickle, because they have seen how transformational these areas can be on productivity levels and staff retention.”
In 2022, Trickle announced a partnership with IT and business consulting group CGI, with CGI now offering Trickle’s employee engagement platform to its own customer base.
Trickle plans to further extend its reach through similar partnerships with industry players across the UK, helping organisations optimise employee experience in a challenging hiring and retention market. Customers can also choose to white label Trickle’s platform.
Trickle was founded in 2019 by Paul Reid, whose previous startup, geospatial solutions specialist Sigma Seven, was acquired by Capita in 2015.