$3m for Whistleblowing and Employee Feedback Firm FaceUp

Prague-based anonymous reporting platform FaceUp has raised $3m in a late seed round. Funds will help the firm expand internationally and develop its whistleblowing and employee feedback software with an AI assistant, a survey solution extension and an anonymous Q&A feature for meetings.

FaceUp was created to fight the 'pervasive culture of silence' in workplaces, over problems such as harassment, ethics violations, safety concerns, corruption and theft: the firm says this is a global problem: with 17% of German, 30% of American and 46% of Indian workers reporting being bullied at work, and 65% of employees worldwide saying they have witnessed at least one act of misconduct in their organisation. FaceUp's encrypted platform allows employees with the ability to 'easily, anonymously and safely' report these issues to someone in their organisation able to help them.

Founded in 2017 as a non-profit by Jan Sláma, David Špunar, and Pavel Ihm to allow bystanders to help bullied schoolmates, FaceUp is now used by more than 1,500 businesses and 2,000 schools across 60 countries, and has offices in The US, Europe, the middle east and Africa. Almost 20,000 reports have been filed on the platform.

The company is developing additional modules to make gathering feedback in different situations easier, including an AI assistant, an improved whistleblower-facing interface, and a survey solution.

The funding was led by Reflex Capital, with participation from Tilia Impact Ventures, supported by the European Investment Fund and Lighthouse Ventures.

CEO Sláma comments: 'FaceUp was born out of a drive to create social impact and cultural change. We have kept this as a core value even as we pivoted to a SaaS offering that's now used by thousands of companies across industries worldwide. More and more, companies understand that employee wellbeing and productivity go hand in hand. Now that we have demonstrated the potential for scalability across industries and geographies, we will use the funding round to broaden and improve our tools and accelerate our efforts in the US in particular, as well as Latin America, and the Middle East'.

COO Špunar adds: 'We've approached whistleblowing not as a compliance hurdle but as a highly effective tool for employee wellbeing and reputation insurance. That has translated into real success on the back of profitable scaling'.

Web site: www.faceup.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.