Back in February, when we talked to Raphael Akinsipe, he described his company SocialCrowd as a “Fitbit but for work.” As CEO and co-founder, he explained that the product allows companies to set goals for employees and then reward them when those expectations are met.

“For example, we had a restaurant incentivize their staff by rewarding them $1 for every five daily specials sold,” Akinsipe recently shared. “And in 90 days, their sales grew 490%.”

At the time, he was announcing a $1.6 million pre-seed, led by Bread & Butter Ventures. But after experiencing growth and traction, he’s back to announce the closing of a $2.5 million seed round, co-led by Bread & Butter Ventures and Augment Ventures.

The company realized after its pre-seed round that it would need additional funding to meet consumer demand. “We have seen incredible growth across verticals; we knew we would need to expand our engineering, customer success, and sales,” Akinsipe shared.

Employers had to get creative during the pandemic to retain their employees and that mindset remains. Initially, the company focused on restaurants but has now expanded to work with companies that have a large hourly blue-collar workforce, like retail and manufacturing. SocialCrowd is now growing at an average of 20% a month, but specific revenue metrics were not disclosed.

Investors are also paying attention to performance management software. Business and productivity software companies have raised $41.9 billion in venture funding this year, down from the record $67.6 billion in 2021. Continued interest in this sector comes from employers facing retention and optimization challenges, with interest in SocialCrowd stemming from the team’s strong execution on products and sales.

FullCircle, Serac Ventures, and VC414 also participated in SocialCrowd’s latest funding round.

Competitors like Bonusly and Awardco exist in this space, but Akinsipe believes SocialCrowd stands out by focusing exclusively on frontline and shift workers with a performance-based platform.

This latest funding will help SocialCrowd expand its engineering and customer success team, as well as venture into new verticals, including a potential move into AI.