Yet Analytics isn't the typical HR analytics platform. Instead, Baltimore-based Yet collects hard data points on an employee's performance, level of engagement and team behaviors so HR managers can measure their impact.
Now, the analytics company has just closed a $1 million Seed B round, bringing it to a total $2.3 million seed round raised since its launch in 2014. Yet plans to use the funds for new hires, especially in the operations and sales division. Investors include Grotech Ventures, whose portfolio companies include Clarabridge, Living Social and Contactually; and TCP Venture Capital, which focuses on social media and analytics companies.
"The most important thing was finding the right partners," Yet co-founder, CEO and president Shelly Blake-Plock said in an interview. "We're pretty picky about making sure that, in terms of investment, we're going after smart money. We go for investors who share a common vision of experience in enterprise SaaS and who have the types of experience and networks that can help us grow as a business."
Yet provides its clients with a plug-in to install on compatible software, such as Github or Slack, that tracks how effectively employees are working.
Blake-Plock said the technology is designed to measure on four different levels: Employee Engagement, or how employees are actually engaging in content and training offered by the company; Learning Effectiveness, or what are the outcomes of training sessions; Information Usage, or which applications are the most effective; and Team Behaviors, or how do individual employees work in teams?
Yet was founded by a group of Johns Hopkins alumni in 2014, and they mostly see corporate enterprise companies as clients. Its website boasts case studies from work with UC Davis, National Association of Broadcasters and George Mason University. But this isn't Blake-Plock's first startup venture. From April 2013 to November 2014, he ran the Baltimore startup An Estuary, which focused on social technology and personalized learning platforms.
Yet plans to expand both its engineering and sales and operations teams in the coming year.
"We see an opportunity here in the people space, in the human capital space within organizations where a Chief People Officer or a Chief Talent Development Officer has tools and technologies at their disposal," Blake-Plock said. "We see this as a new paradigm within that space for the employers in enterprise to really leverage big data in the way that other people within the organization have through a variety of other services."
Image used via CC BY-SA 2.0 — credit Taomeister
