Waterloo-based startup Plasticity, the workplace engagement platform cofounded by former professional lacrosse player Jim Moss, Jennifer Moss and Lance Mohring, has raised $500,000 in venture capital.
The seed round was led by BDC Venture Capital, Ted Briggs, Norm Kerr and other private investors.
Plasticity’s vision is to work with organizations and help them inspire their workforce. “Happier employees work harder, stay healthier, learn more, feel more creative, and generate more revenue for the companies they work for,” explained the company in a release. It’s mission is therefore to “transform the culture of the workplace into an ecosystem that thrives off of social learning, connectedness and positive engagement.”
To do this the company says it combines the science of neuroplasticity with positive psychology and that it is revolutionizing the way companies can “measure, manage and stimulate” their workplace culture.
The company’s product is a dashboard-type software that focuses on what they consider as the greatest KPI: happiness. The software enables users to select and manage surveys, collect data, stimulate conversation, and learn who their “social champions” are, and how to leverage the best employees to inspire culture.
“Performance flourishes inside of cultures that respect people, values and organizational goals,” wrote the company. “Plasticity measures the company values that guide your success. We identify your Happiest Highest Performers™ and connect them to the rest of your workforce. Once connected, Plasticity provides employees fun and simple tools to build the social and psychological skills that let any employee become a workplace H.E.R.O.”
The software also uses a “#Valuetag” system, which collect thousands of images, “allowing your team to capture and share the moments that make work great. Understand which values your employees experience most frequently and which require additional support.”
Plasticity works with a team of seven PhD and PhD Candidates in Positive and Organizational Psychology at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University.
The company was formerly known as “The Smile Epidemic,” after Moss was diagnosed in 2009 with Guillane-Barre Syndrome, a neuro-muscalur disease. Motivated by how two separate nurses could encourage him differently by what they said to him during his recovery, he started the movement. By writing what made him smile, or what he was grateful for on a piece of paper above an image of a smile, the project was born. People from over 450 cities and 200 countries around the globe participated online by taking pictures of themselves holding up a note on what makes them smile.
Eventually this transformed into Plasticity, the integrative tool for companies to engage their workers to a greater degree and encourage a positive working environment.