Vancouver-based SaaS startup Produce8 announced that it has raised $6 million CAD in seed-round funding.
Produce8 declined to name the investors in the round, noting only that interest followed the launch of its early access platform funded via Top Down Ventures’ pre-seed accelerator. The round brings Produce8’s total funding to date to $6.1 million CAD.
The all-equity, all-primary capital round will go towards launching Produce8’s product, scaling monthly active users, and expanding the company’s product and sales teams.
Produce8 believes burnout “is largely due to employees making up time for work they can’t get done during the day due to the volume of digital noise.”
Co-founded by Top Down partner Joel Abramson and Mark Scott, Produce8 is a digital work analytics platform aimed at optimizing remote worker productivity. Both Abramson and Scott are also leaders at Fully Managed by Telus Business, a managed service provider (MSP).
Through insights on workflows, well-being, and providing data, Produce8 minimalizes the impact of distraction and fragmentation that comes with remote work. The company believes existing solutions to digital team productivity have been too focused on productivity enforcement and not enough on existing workflow analysis.
Taking a more human-centered approach to the productivity problem, Produce8 prioritized worker wellbeing in the larger apparatus of a company’s productivity. A recent study by LifeWorks’ Mental Health Index shows poor employee mental health can lead to three times less productivity per year.
The company expects to have an impact on employee burnout, which it believes has increased in remote work areas. “We believe this is largely due to employees making up time for work they can’t get done during the day due to the volume of digital noise,” VP of product Ryan McGinnis told BetaKit. According to the company, distractions lead to around 90 minutes of productivity loss per day, costing North American enterprises $1 trillion annually.
“By analyzing the data from interactions with the apps we use, Produce8 can visualize and understand work patterns, providing constructive feedback on how to repair digital work, said Top Down Ventures managing partner Chris Day. “By minimizing the impact of collaboration distraction and work fragmentation, teams can reduce digital burnout and ultimately manage remote work better.”
The initial plan is to launch into IT services in early 2023, after which “we plan to expand our focus to the 75 million North American knowledge workers both directly and indirectly through the MSP channel,” McGinnis said.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash.