Ryan Holmes’ new venture fund has made its first investment.
LOI Venture, a collaboration between Holmes and New Avenue Capital’s Manny Padda, has led a USD $1.5 million seed round in WFHomie, an employee engagement and distributed team culture platform.
LOI Venture invests solely in early-stage startups who enrol in League of Innovators programs. Both Holmes and Padda are Board Members of League of Innovators.
“WFHomie was the perfect opportunity to be the first recipient of funding from our new LOI Venture fund. They encapsulate everything our fund sets out to be, providing more capital and greater mentorship to young Canadian entrepreneurs,” says Ryan Holmes, co-founder of Hootsuite.
“WFHomie is bridging the gap of hybrid, remote work and has a deep understanding of what’s needed to build those meaningful relationships.”
Co-founded by Pavla Bobosikova and Reza Farahani (pictured), WFHomie’s platform makes building real human connections between employees easier by analyzing employee engagement and identifying gaps in team behaviour.
Leveraging a set of integrations with Slack, G-Suite and various HRIS systems, WFHomie enables companies to operate more effectively with data and seamless employee experience execution.
WFHomie provides curated recommendations on actions to take, leveraging the platform’s unique set of virtual experiences, team-building activities and employee appreciation opportunities. This helps companies attract and retain top talent, boost their employer brand, and keep culture alive, even in the remote workplace.
Following its initial launch in Toronto and Montreal, WFHomie is now looking to expand its services across the rest of the U.S. and Canada. Proceeds from the round are being deployed to facilitate this global expansion and enhance the company’s platform and analytics abilities.
“There are far too many people working from home who are feeling isolated and are on the verge of burnout. WFHomie was created to fix that,” says WFHomie CEO Bobosikova. “We’ve seen the great resignation change the way employers are treating their staff. With this new raise, we can continue to grow our team, our analytics and reporting capabilities, and continue to acquire new customers.”
“Employee burnout and top-talent turnover has plagued companies over the years, and it’s more prevalent than ever coming out of 2021,” added co-founder Farahani. “With this new raise, WFHomie is just scratching the surface on where we are going in the world of employee-human connection.”
With a large customer base of Wealthsimple, BMO, Microsoft, and Google, WFHomie has solidified a strong Canadian approach and is eager to expand its reach across North America with this new raise.
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