Pyn Raises $8M To Help Build New Hybrid Work Culture

Australia-based Pyn closed an $8 million Seed-1 round to help companies stay more engaged with employees — something many are looking to do as the workforce has become more distributed.

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The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors in the round included BambooHR co-founder Ryan Sanders, Accel Partners and Skip Capital. Founded in 2019, the company has raised a total of $10.2 million.

Pyn is trying to solve the problem of too much corporate communication. Its platform — which integrates with business solutions like BambooHR and Workday —  helps companies with personalized internal communication and guidance to employees regarding things like onboarding, promotions and reviews.

Co-founder and co-CEO Joris Luijke, former head of people at both Atlassian and Squarespace, said it’s the type of tool HR departments have needed for years.

“We don’t take all the information we have on people to talk to them better,” he said.

Bringing martech to HR

Pyn uses data, automation and other tools similar to what the martech industry has done for years with targeted campaigns. However, Pyn brings that tech in-house for business communications — and at a time when companies are scrambling for better communications with employees as many are still working at home.

“While we believe there was a big opportunity here before the pandemic, with workforces becoming even more distributed, it has become critical that company communications be distributed on a regular cadence, customized for specific geographies, functions and employee needs,” said David Ulevitch, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

Luijke said while the company obviously did not anticipate a pandemic, the event and the work-from-home environment it created did likely increase interest in the platform when it came to market about a year ago. The 10-person company does not release customer numbers, but expects to have about 100 by the end of the year. Its current clients include Shopify, Rubrik and Snyk.

Pyn is hoping to ride the wave of increased interest in HR or people software, as companies look for ways to stay engaged with their employees. Co-founder and co-CEO Jon Williams said the space is seeing an “explosion” of interest as companies try to keep the culture they created intact.

The founders think that interest could lead to a large standalone company — and are not thinking about being acquired by a larger HR player.

“I think we want to build our own thing and our own company,” Williams said.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.