Three new graduates of Rhodes College in Memphis joined together in 2019 to create Scholars, a digital platform that connects companies with college students and young professionals for internships and entry-level positions.
That venture was born out of their first foray into entrepreneurship while they were still in school: QuickFix, a platform that linked homeowners with college students who could perform odd jobs.
The trio — Ben Siegel, Evan Deere and Parker Pell — left Memphis for Boulder last year and is now rebranding Scholars to Abode, a name the co-founders said better represents their mission of helping employers improve their turnover rates and foster "a place of belonging" for early-career professionals, they said.
"We recognized we weren’t the same company anymore, and the Scholars name and brand no longer spoke to what we were building," the co-founders said in an announcement Monday. "We wanted a name that represented not only where we are today, but where we're headed."
Voluntary turnover costs U.S. companies about $1 trillion every year, according to Gallup, Inc., an analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Abode is aiming to prevent turnover by keeping early-career employees engaged in their work. The team said it's making human resources teams more efficient and building a "one-stop shop" for early-career engagement and retention.
Abode raised $5 million seed funding in 2022 to work toward those goals. Lead investors include two Colorado-based venture capital firms, Range Ventures and Matchstick Ventures, as well as Los Angeles-based Bonfire Ventures.
With the funding, Siegel, Deere and Pell plan to build out their products for employers, grow Abode's go-to-market team and improve their own workplace culture.
The trio admitted that 2023 is likely to be "a real test for us" given the overall market downturn and pullback in funding for venture-backed startups.
"2023 is going to be a different year from any we've seen so far," Siegel said. "So, outside of the three more tactical goals... our goal is to stay incredibly focused on our mission and ensure we're building a strong business."
Despite many companies laying off workers or implementing hiring freezes at the end of 2022, the Abode co-founders believe they can gain a foothold in the market by helping companies recruit and hang onto young workers. According to a 2022 survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, cited by the Wall Street Journal, many companies plan to increase their hiring of new college graduates in 2023.
Since closing on the round in 2022, Abode's staff has grown from five to 16, and it's currently hiring for an enterprise business development representative. The startup's annual recurring revenue was more than six times higher ending 2022 than at the end of 2021, Siegel said.
Abode works with local and regional companies, as well as nine Fortune 500 companies so far, including eBay, Lyft and the public health insurer Elevance Health, formerly known as Anthem, Inc. Abode modernizes the companies' onboarding and retention strategies and helps them retain their young employees, the startup said.
"Abode provides a solution that allows us to better connect with Gen Z talent in a way that is engaging to them," Brooke Smith, a talent acquisition manager at Elevance Health, said in a statement. "It offers a way for Elevance Health to enhance our brand and coin ourselves as an employer of choice for college students and graduates."
