Bonusly pulls down $18.9 million in additional funding

BOULDER — Recognition and rewards platform Bonusly has received $18.9 million in Series B funding.

The funding round for the Boulder-based company was led by Ankona Capital. Prior investors FirstMark Capital, Access Venture Partners and Next Frontier Capital also participated.

Bonusly, which is highly ranked by G2.com for employee recognition and employee engagement, is used by companies such as Chobani and ZipRecruiter. G2 is a peer-to-peer review site.

The Bonusly platform creates a system for employers to extend recognition to staff members; employees receive an average of two recognitions from peers and managers every week, the company said in a press statement. Bonusly is a trade name for Smartly Inc.

“Recognition is crucial to employee retention. According to a 2022 survey of 2,000 respondents, 63% of workers feel unappreciated by their employer on a daily basis, and 46% left a job because they felt unappreciated. Frequent, authentic recognition of their work can make an enormous difference. In fact, nearly two-thirds (65%) said they are likely to stay at a job if their coworkers and peers recognize their work, even if they have an unappreciative manager,” the press statement said.

The software platform also provides information to managers about how the organization is working so that improvements can be made where needed.

Bonusly will use the new funding to improve the recognition platform and build out its analytics capabilities. The company will also invest in sales and marketing.

“Bonusly customers see significant, measurable improvement in employee engagement and morale with Bonusly,” Newth Morris, partner at Ankona Capital, said in a written statement. “The organizational network data that Bonusly provides is both powerful and unique. But just as important is the leadership team’s approach to managing the company with incredible capital efficiency. Raphael [Crawford-Marks] founded and bootstrapped the company for nearly three years before raising capital, and that culture of making every dollar count continues to this day. It puts the company in a very strong position to address the challenges companies face motivating, retaining and understanding their workforce in a rapidly changing economic landscape.””This new capital will enable us to expand and build on the strong foundation we have in place, enabling companies to meet the constantly changing people challenges of today’s volatile economy,” said Crawford-Marks, CEO of Bonusly. “Since our Series A, [$9 million] we have seen our valuation more than triple, despite the multiple compression that has occurred in today’s market — a strong recognition of the value we already provide and the even greater opportunity that lies ahead. We’re just getting started.”

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