This morning Zira raised $ 3.1 million in a seed round. The startup provides software that helps companies plan their hourly workforce smarter.
Software often fails to reach non-IT workers, so it's nice to see a startup focus on a slightly forgotten demographic. General catalyst and Abstract Ventures led the round, which also saw the participation of numerous angel investors.
This is the company's first known investment, according to data from Crunchbase.
The technology that Zira sells looks clean from the outside. It can set up team schedules automatically, taking on a task that can be full of favoritism or prejudice and making it a little more standardized. Its service can also manage the inbound and outbound clock for workers, and provides a chat function to help groups of workers stay in sync.
And most interesting of all, Zira's platform has an automation feature, which allows managers to create triggers to replace missing staff for a shift, or provide rewards to workers who are first in a category, such as attendance. .
Zira's service costs $ 4 per employee, per month, or $ 3 if paid annually. It also performs custom deals with larger customers, for which we assume discounts may be available.
The round
To better understand the round itself, ProWellTech asked Zira what the new capital will unlock for her business. Tito Goldstein, one of the founders of the company, responded that the funds will allow his company to expand its development team, "refine" its product and work on its sales function.
"We started with a product that met customer expectations and secured deals with existing platforms," Goldstein said in an email, "but now we really want to differentiate ourselves." Hiring more developers should help the company move faster in that direction, and without the money it's pretty hard to hire engineers.
On the sales front, Goldstein said that after relying on "referrals or local connections" to protect customers, COVID has made those channels "more and more difficult." This means that Zira needs a more traditional sales function and capital.
Zira declined to share the growth parameters, saying it hopes to do so by the end of the year. This means that we will contact Zira in a few months to get the data. Until then, it's a fun startup with a clear idea. Let's see how far it goes with its new capital.