D.C.-based startup Aspire closed a $400,000 seed round for its mission to provide customizable employee perks and benefits to companies. Instead of automatically getting certain benefits that you may not want and never use, Aspire uses local vendors to give a range of options for people whose companies want to boost morale in a less generic way.
"The way it's done now is so underwhelming. It's a lame way of approaching perks," said Aspire co-founder and CEO Neil Shah. "It was a very, very big hole in the market."
Aspire arranges with employers to give employees a dollar amount to use in an online marketplace of local goods and services that they can customize to their own interests. It could be gym memberships, wine delivery, sports tickets or recreational leagues or anything else among the more than 60 vendors that Aspire has signed up for the platform. There's also an option to assign employees a set of options tiered by price if the company prefers that approach.
"The workplace has changed, just look at Google and Facebook," said Aspire co-founder and COO Lily Cua. "We saw a really good opportunity get involved in making a difference there."
Aspire now has three clients in its pilot program, an accounting firm, a healthcare advisory company and a consulting firm, about 400 users so far. The $400,000 seed round came via Acceleprise Ventures, K Street Capital and a double handful of other angel investors. Aspire actually began as part of the Acceleprise tech incubator about a year and a half ago. Now, with the money in hand, Aspire can work its way up to expanding its services and clients in more pilot programs.
"Acceleprise was a really great launchpad," Cua said. "They really helped us form our idea. Now we have a 12 to 14 month runway, and then we can start looking at Series A."
Aspire is taking in about $50,000 a month in payment from its clients, something that can easily be scalable, especially in an environment like D.C. according to Shah.
"It's much more widely applicable than we first thought," he said. "It can really help employees engage with their companies."
The founders have some deep roots in D.C., with links to the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative going back several years.
"The D.C. area is really exciting," Cua said. "We're just really happy to be part of helping the local scene grow."
