A Boston startup that provides recruitment and retention tools for quick-serve restaurant franchise owners has raised new funds to build a job-training platform.
HourWork has closed an additional $2.5 million in Series A funding led by MassMutual’s MM Catalyst Fund. The company announced the initial close of an oversubscribed $10 million Series A funding round last month. Other participants in the round include Morgan Stanley’s Next Level Fund, Positive Sum Ventures and RelishWorks.
Rahkeem Morris co-founded HourWork in 2018 after spending a decade working in hourly jobs. When he was 14 years old, Morris said, he dropped out of high school and started working several hourly jobs to help provide for his family. He went back to high school at 18 years old and later earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Morris estimates he worked 13 hourly roles in retail, fast food and as a technician throughout his teenage and college years.
“This is a company that I founded almost in retrospect,” Morris said. “Sometimes that reason comes out later.”
The company uses a software-as-a-service business model. HourWork helps companies recruit talent by re-engaging with past applicants and former employees. The company also aims to help franchises retain employees through its automated check-in texts.
“With these texts that we’re sending to people, we’re doing it at intervals just to make sure they’re having a great experience,” Morris said. “Typically, we’re able to double the applicant flow for our clients and we’ve been able to reduce the (average) 90-day turnover for our owner-operators by about 20%.”
The company said it has added 4,000 franchise locations in 2021 for a total of over 6,000 locations. HourWork's customers include franchises of popular fast-food chains, including McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell and Dominos.
HourWork has raised $18 million to date, including its pre-seed, seed, seed II and Series A rounds, Morris said. It has 49 employees.
The original $10 million raised in the Series A will go toward scaling HourWork’s presence in the fast-food industry, Morris said. The new $2.5 million will be used to build a job training platform. Users will be able to earn certifications and use that training to find jobs at other employers who accept that qualification.
“Long term, what we want to tap into is this challenge that perhaps employers may not know they’re experiencing today, and it’s the shift toward a more flexible type of work,” Morris said. “More of these shorter-term assignments that people can pick up in a more flexible way to create a schedule that works for them, rather than them working for a schedule.”
In addition to the funding, HourWork also announced that Carla Harris, senior client advisor at Morgan Stanley, will join its board of directors. Harris also serves on the board of directors for Walmart, Cummins Corp. and MetLife.
