YouEarnedIt Secures $1.5 Million Seed Round; Investment Marks a Movement Towards Better Solutions for Employee Engagement

AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwired - May 14, 2014) - YouEarnedIt®, an award-winning, real-time employee-to-employee recognition and engagement software platform, today announced that it has received $1.5 million in seed funding from many sources, including communications conglomerate, WPP; start-up incubator and accelerator, Capital Factory; and several entrepreneurs who are YouEarnedIt customers. The funding will support additional product development and service expansion.

"YouEarnedIt is solving an issue that every company has, which is a need to better engage and impact their people for greater success. Traditional 'surface recognition' that is top-down, inauthentic, occasional and non-metrics-based isn't cutting it," says Autumn Manning, CEO of YouEarnedIt and former partner at SVI, a leading talent development company. "This seven figure seed round financing signals investors' interest and understanding in YouEarnedIt's role as the emerging leader for engagement in the burgeoning people platform solution industry."

YouEarnedIt is an innovative employee engagement platform that facilitates real-time, employee-to-employee recognition that builds a measurable culture of appreciation and cultivates employee behaviors that matter to an organization. Through the social-media based platform, supervisors and colleagues alike are able to recognize employees for their accomplishments and contributions by awarding points that can be redeemed for meaningful rewards, such as digital gift cards, cool products, executive coaching, days off, charitable contributions in their community or any other custom reward that the company chooses.

"We heard from our team members that too much of the power of recognition was in the hands of senior leaders. Using YouEarnedIt we were able to give every person in every corner of the business the ability to provide recognition. Now we have about one person getting recognized every 15 minutes," says Lee Burbage, People & Culture, Motley Fool. "The platform is simple to use and incredibly thoughtful in its approach to creating a culture driven by appreciation, connections and feedback. It has brought to life the love our employees have for each other and our values."

Through YouEarnedIt, employees are encouraged to engage with their colleagues and recognize the positive in their every day -- fostering a happier, more productive work environment through appreciation. Additionally, YouEarnedIt brings a company's values to life by allowing employees to tag a specific company value when sending the recognition -- keeping company values top of mind, socializing them publicly across the organization and reinforcing strengths that employees exhibit.

"At our core, we all want to know that what we are doing matters and is appreciated -- not just once a year or once a quarter, but any time we can get it -- and luckily, technology like YouEarnedIt now allows us to connect to others in this way," said Manning. "We want to connect with others, know that the company we work for has meaning and that we as individuals are making an impact both in our company and in our community. YouEarnedIt provides companies with a conduit to provide these things for employees in an organic, authentic way across the organization."

Currently, YouEarnedIt boasts more than 115 customer companies with employees actively engaged on the platform. Customers range in size from 20 person teams to international brands and industry leaders with tens of thousands of employees spread across the globe. YouEarnedIt was named one of Entrepreneur magazine's 100 Brilliant Companies in 2013, received the 2013 Great Place To Work "Best People Practice" Audience Favorite Award and most recently, was one of three 2014 SXSW HATCH Pitch winners.

About YouEarnedIt
YouEarnedIt is an innovative employee engagement platform that facilitates real-time, employee-to-employee recognition and enables custom, meaningful rewards. Through the social-media based platform, supervisors and colleagues alike are able to recognize employees for their accomplishments and contributions. Employee-to-employee recognition through YouEarnedIt has proven to enhance job satisfaction, productivity, customer services, sales, and retention. For more information, visit YouEarnedIt.com.