Atlanta software startup ePerkz just got a makeover.
EPerkz rebranded to Onwards HR earlier this month to better reflect its product offerings, co-founder and CEO Sarah Rodehorst said.
Onwards HR provides businesses with software that helps them manage employee separations and company reorganizations. Rodehorst said the software helps prevent human error through automation and streamlines the process to be easier on managers.
“We really wanted to pick a name that was a positive and forward-looking representation of what we do,” Rodehorst said.
Rodehorst and her co-founder, Janice Yu Edwards, launched their startup in 2017 and initially planned to provide software to manage employee benefits. But managers said they already had those applications and needed a solution to help with terminating employees.
In November 2019, Onwards HR launched its employee termination software. Rodehorst said Onwards HR has no competition and can work with other employee management software. Their software is patent pending.
The startup has helped manage about 1,000 separations, mostly with clients based in Atlanta.
“There’s such a supportive community here, where people are really open to startups,” Rodehorst said. “With us targeting enterprise businesses, that has been important.”
The new name better represents the startup’s pivot, Rodehorst said, making it easier to connect with potential clients. She plans to grow Onwards HR through marketing and may raise a funding round later this year if they need it to scale quickly based on demand.
So far, the founders have bootstrapped the Onwards HR product, which was made completely in Georgia, Rodehorst said.
Rodehorst and Edwards met about 20 years ago at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) while working on another startup, Connecture, which went public in 2014.
The two continued to work in the human resources and the software space until they reconnected to form Onwards HR.
