Employee communications leader Poppulo raises $35 million to accelerate global expansion

Funding backs innovator shaping the future of workplace engagement

BOSTON, Jan. 09, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The world’s leading employee communications and engagement company, Poppulo, today announced an investment of $35 million by US-based Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE).

Poppulo founder and CEO Andrew O’Shaughnessy said the investment will help the company accelerate international expansion plans in a sector that is now recognized as critical to business success.

“The companies and organizations who are winning know how absolutely crucial internal communication is not only for employee engagement but also in terms of recruitment and retention - and ultimately the bottom line,” said O’Shaughnessy.

Over 20% of the largest employers in the United States are Poppulo customers while the figure is even higher in Europe, at 30%.

Its customer base of over 800 of the world’s biggest organizations includes Unilever, Bank of America, Nestlé, Johnson Controls, Rolls-Royce, Boston Scientific - and almost half the world’s top pharma companies.

Commenting on SGE’s investment, Managing Director Jonathan Klahr, said: “Employee communications and engagement is tremendously important for business success and we view it as a market with enormous potential - a market led by the vision, ambition, and innovation of Poppulo.”

“We’re very excited about what we can achieve together, and how this investment will enable Andrew and his team to shape the sector’s future, as Poppulo escalates its global influence and expansion through best-in-class innovation and thought leadership,” said Mr. Klahr.

O'Shaughnessy said he was attracted by SGE's collaborative, entrepreneur-centric ethos and their scaling expertise. The investment will fund further market-leading innovation and R&D, plus expansion of sales and marketing across EMEA and the USA. Apart from initial seed capital the company has been bootstrapped up to now.

O’Shaughnessy founded Poppulo with the aim of creating the world’s most powerful force in employee communications and engagement: “In 2012 I clearly saw this was where we needed to be as a company, so I bet our future on a sector that was in early-stage development.”

“We were acutely aware that people need to feel a sense of purpose in their workplace, of being involved and being valued, and having their views heard and acted on. Which puts communications at the heart of everything a company needs to do if it is to be successful,” said O’Shaughnessy.

Poppulo - which has its North American head office in Boston and HQ in Cork, Ireland - pioneered specialist software for the internal communications sector, focusing initially on internal email management, enabling large organizations to communicate effectively with their workforces for greater levels of engagement and enhanced employee experience.

The company recently launched a mobile app which wraps the power of the platform’s email and analytics into an unrivaled employee communications solution. “The combination of our email and mobile products together with the power of our analytics is a game changer for the sector,” said O’Shaughnessy.

“We already dominate internal communications email globally, and now with our mobile app organizations can reach all their employees wherever they are, at their desks, at remote locations or on the road,” he said.

“Technology has completely changed the way we consume information and organizations have to ensure the digital experience of their employees in the workplace matches what they have grown to expect in their personal lives.”

“Internal communication has to be able to deliver a dialogue that is personalized and relevant to people who are used to filtering out irrelevant content in their lives outside of work. That’s where Poppulo comes in,” said O’Shaughnessy.

About Poppulo:

When many of the world’s most successful organizations - including GSK, Aon, Telefonica, Honda, and CDK Global - want to solve complex employee communication and engagement challenges with their large international workforces, they look to Poppulo.

Custom-built software designed for the internal communications sector enables organizations to plan, target, publish and measure the impact of their communications across multiple digital channels - email, mobile, video, social networks, all on one platform.

Just as easily, employee sentiment can quickly and regularly be assessed through pulse surveys using the same technology. For more information: poppulo.com

About SGE:

Susquehanna Growth Equity is an entrepreneur-centric growth equity fund with flexible capital and time horizons. We are focused on software, information services, and internet companies, and to date have invested over $1bn in market-leading companies such as Credit Karma, iCims, Payoneer and Outbrain.

All of our capital comes from Susquehanna International Group (SIG), one the world’s largest privately-held financial services firms. We are proud to be a part of one of the biggest bootstrapped, entrepreneurial success stories in the world. For more information: sgep.com

For further information contact:

Tim Vaughan
tvaughan@poppulo.com +353 21 2427277

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