NEW YORK — Valence, the leading teamwork platform, has announced its $25 million Series A fundraise led by New York-based private equity and venture capital Insight Partners with additional investments from existing investors. This round of funding will be used to meet growing market demand and attract premier talent.
With this funding round, Valence also announced its launch of their Board of Advisors featuring an esteemed group of enterprise-scale experts, including Bill McNabb (former chairman and CEO at Vanguard), Eric Roza (former CEO at CrossFit), Katie Bullard (former president & chief growth officer at ZoomInfo and now Managing Director at Insight Partners), and with more to come.
Valence is changing enterprise companies’ approach to talent and development and helps them go beyond bespoke or one-size-fits-all coaching to a more effective approach that addresses the complex dynamics of teamwork. Valence works with leading companies, including Applied Materials, The Coca-Cola Company, Boston Scientific, Illumina, and many others to provide best practices and teams-based coaching at scale through digital tools.
Valence’s teamwork platform provides enterprises with:
- Individual and team assessments: Diagnostic tools to uncover working styles of individuals and the patterns and dynamics of the broader team they sit within
- Discussion facilitation: AI-powered coaching prompts, benchmarks, and guides to conduct alignment exercises across individuals and teams
- 360 Learning Journeys: In-depth peer-based reviews with actionable feedback to uncover blind spots and identify areas to improve
- Habits prompts: Automated and customizable reminders on actions to hold one another accountable for the habits that will lead to meaningful change for a team
“Valence saw tremendous growth over the last year, and we are thrilled by the strong validation we are receiving from our incredible clients and the market,” said Parker Mitchell, co-founder and CEO at Valence. “As more enterprises embrace the new reality of modern workforces, we will continue to make manager enablement in hybrid environments scale for them, and allow our clients to effortlessly improve team performance and employee retention. This funding will help us attract premier talent and rapidly expand Valence’s business.”
Katie Bullard, managing director at Insight Partners added, “Insight is thrilled to partner with Valence as the company builds on its category-leading manager enablement platform.” She then went on to say that, “Equipping teams to succeed and work well together as organizations get increasingly complex is a top priority for every enterprise. We are excited to support Valence’s hyper-growth journey as the company continues to innovate and expand.”
“The companies that I’ve seen excel in recent years recognize that teams are the foundation of employee performance,” said Bill McNabb, former chairman and CEO at Vanguard. “In today’s workplace, teams provide the foundation for trust, teaching, and learning that is so important for employee fulfillment and success. This has been accelerated by the changing workplace where hybrid and highly distributed teams are the norm. I’m excited to be helping Valence scale to reach an even larger set of clients who recognize that a teams-based focus in their learning and development programs will drive performance.”
People thrive when they are on teams that help them learn and grow with their colleagues, and are able to produce creative, meaningful work. These teams combine empathy, understanding and performance and are more than the sum of the parts. They are increasingly the aspiration for every leader, company, and employee.
However, most HR platforms and learning and development (L&D) approaches are focused on individuals, and this holds back a manager’s ability to build stronger teams. When a professional development program only focuses on the individual, it ignores the potential friction and nuances of the environment that person is expected to apply those new skills within. When the individual and the broader team are both considered and developed, all of this goes more smoothly.
Valence’s clients see meaningful improvements in employee satisfaction and retention when teams-based coaching is deployed, with many focusing on new managers, higher performance employees, hybrid and remote workers, and global distribution.
“We need our teams and leaders to have accessible ways to improve how well they perform together.” said Michael Hill Ph.D, director of integrated talent at Applied Materials. “Valence creates a data-driven and well structured way for teams to diagnose their issues, and come up with solutions.”
About Valence
Founded in 2017, Valence is the only teamwork platform used by Fortune 500 companies. Valence helps managers leverage data and on-demand industry-leading expertise to accelerate the team health, connectivity, and performance required for today’s workplace.
Valence gives every manager the tools and insights they need to understand their team’s health in real time, intervene with powerful guided conversations, and set and track shared commitments to team improvements. Valence’s easy to use, web-enabled team experience modules eliminate the need for expensive coaches and talent team interventions, putting managers in the driver’s seat of their team experience. Managing has never been harder, and Valence eases the burden managers bear by helping them develop and support their teams while also driving performance and improvement. To learn more, visit valence.co
