Achievers raises $24.5M for employee rewards

The company, formerly known as I Love Rewards, gets support from Sequoia and others

Employee rewards platform Achievers, formerly I Love Rewards, has set a pretty modest goal for itself: to “change the way the world works.”  So the company is probably doing that by addressing the big issues, like the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the Greek economic crisis, and the unemployment rate in the U.S., right?  Nope.  Baby steps.  Achievers is changing the way the world works one HR office at a time.

It may sound like employee rewards would have a negligible impact on global events, but Achievers caught Sequoia’s eye.  The company announced Wednesday that it has raised $24.5 million in a Series C round of funding led by Sequoia, with help from  JLA Ventures, GrandBanks Capital, and the Ontario Venture Capital Fund (Managed by NorthLeaf Capital).  The new round brings Achievers’ total raised to $38 million.

Founded in 1995, Achievers offers a unique platform that can be customized to any brand or business’s liking and features a set of achievements employees can be recognized for (New Hire Recognition, Bright Ideas, Social Recruiting, etc.), how many points are awarded for each achievement, and what employees have to do to earn those rewards.  Points can then be redeemed for a number of prizes, including event tickets, Expedia deals, Groupons, and more.

And the platform works.  In one case study, dental insurance company Delta Dental partnered with Achievers to implement SmilePoints in an effort to drive up sales among its brokers.  In the year after Delta Dental implemented the program, it saw its highest small-group sales to date and doubled the number of brokers selling 10 or more groups.

In another case, Rogers Communications, a Canadian provider of cable TV, high-speed Internet, and telephone services, implemented the program to drive sales and increase profitability, and within six months, the company saw a 93% increase in the number of submissions made by fulfillment reps for additional services.

"Employee rewards and recognition is a $48 billion industry that is highly fragmented, largely manual and lacking in the metrics to prove-out the ROI," said Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin, in a statement. "Achievers' customer centric business model and SaaS technology platform is on a path to disrupt this market. We're excited to join Achievers to meet the demands of the modern workplace."

Employee rewards may be the next big tech space.  Last month, BetterWorks, an employee rewards platform founded by FarmVille creator Zao Yang, raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Redpoint Ventures.

Headquartered in San Francisco and Toronto, Achievers saw a 105% increase in monthly revenue over the last year and plans to use the new funding from this round to increase its market share.