A Scottish company has secured £1 million in funding to further advance its technology for boosting workplace productivity by allowing all team members to provide timely and anonymous feedback.

Founded in 2019 by Paul Reid, Edinburgh-based Trickle plans to expand its team, increase its presence in the private sector, and add features to its platform for enabling more inclusive communication. Current customers include NHS Scotland, NHS England, CGI, and Johnston Carmichael.

The funding round was led by private investors group Equity Gap, London-based venture capital group NoBa Capital, and Scottish Enterprise.

It follows a string of recent appointments at Trickle including Mark Mountford as chief financial officer, Rebecca Christensen as chief marketing officer, and Victoria Mackie’s promotion to head of customer wellbeing.  Last year, Amanda Kerley joined Trickle’s leadership team as chief operating officer, having previously headed the company’s customer wellbeing unit.

“We look forward to continuing our growth plans with the support of our investors, and we’re seeing significant opportunities to work with more companies in the private sector," said Mr Reid, whose previous startup Sigma Seven was acquired by Capita in 2015 .

"Overall, organisations realise there are innovative ways to establish and sustain a culture of trust and positivity, and that this will pay dividends in terms of efficiency, retention, ground-up innovation, and the bottom line.” 

This year's State of Global Workplace report by Gallup found that the UK has one of the least engaged workforces in Europe, ranking 33 out of 38 among peer countries. Trickle’s platform works by "empowering team members to share honest, timely, anonymous feedback, which is translated into actionable activity". 

Fraser Lusty, managing director of Equity Gap, said: “Paul and the Trickle team have made considerable commercial progress, with their technology increasingly adopted across the public and private sectors helping to solve challenges that every organisation faces, and we’re excited to support the business during its next phase of growth.”

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In 2022 Trickle signed a partnership deal with CGI under which the IT and consulting group offers Trickle’s employee engagement platform to its own customer base. Trickle plans to strike similar agreements with other industry players across the UK, while customers can also choose to white label Trickle’s platform.

Amanda Kerley added: “Three of our big themes include promoting transparency, enhancing psychological safety, and addressing whistleblowing, and we’ve built the option for a robust anonymity feature into the product along these lines," Ms Kerley added.

"Essentially, we’re matching what our customers say they want most from Trickle, because they have seen how transformational these areas can be on productivity levels and staff retention.”

Vanesa Pazos, founding partner of NoBa Capital said her group was excited by Trickle's potential to create "worker-centric solutions that shape the future of work".

"We are passionate about using technology to enhance transparency, fairness, and equal opportunities for workers," she said. "Managers gaining insights into employee sentiment for actionable improvements is crucial.”  

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