Blueboard Secures $9.3M in Series A Funding

Blueboard, a San Francisco, CA-based rewards and recognition platform used to engage employees and top-performers with curated experiences, closed a $9.3m Series A funding. The round was led by Origin Ventures, with participation from Greycroft, Bullpen Capital, Plug and Play, Gaingels, and Martin Babinec, founder of TriNet.
”At Blueboard we’ve always believed that traditional employee rewards and incentives are unremarkable, impersonal, and too transactional to motivate people,” said Taylor Smith, Co-Founder and CEO at Blueboard. “We’re proud to enable hundreds of companies to create impactful moments with ease.”
Blueboard’s platform helps companies of any size create personalized employee recognition and incentive programs that celebrate and elevate their best talent. From skydiving to virtual cooking classes to family days at the zoo, Blueboard’s platform makes it easy for companies and their managers to reward top-performing employees with exceptional experiences . Once a reward is sent by a manager, recipients can choose the experience that’s most meaningful to them, and Blueboard’s high-touch Concierge service seamlessly handles all bookings, payments, and logistics.
Blueboard has built a global footprint over the past 2 years, offering more than 4,000 personalized experiences in over 70 countries. With approximately 1-2% of company payroll, or over $70 billion annually, going towards non-cash rewards like gift cards, reward points, merchandise and plaques, Blueboard offers companies the opportunity to recognize top-performing employees in memorable and meaningful ways. Blueboard’s unique model has attracted a diverse set of companies including Abbott’s diabetes care business, Pinterest, Shake Shack, and Ubisoft, enabling them to deliver life-changing experiences from chasing the Northern Lights (which led to an employee naming their daughter Aurora), to marriage proposals during Napa wine country getaways.
The company will use the new funding to invest into the technology powering their products, platform, and enterprise capabilities, as well as international expansion to support a growing roster of global Fortune 500 clients.