Startups

Backed by Elevation Capital, Profit.co helps companies execute OKRs

Comment

Group of co-workers relaxing with drinks after conference event, using laptop, smiling and cheerful, used in post about Profit.co
Image Credits: 10'000 Hours (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Developed by Andy Grove at Intel in the 1970s, OKR is now one of the most popular management methodologies. OKR, which stands for “objectives and key results,” helps companies achieve goals, including financial and operational targets. At places with a lot of employees, however, it can be hard to make sure everyone is on the same page. Profit.co wants to keep teams connected with a platform that helps businesses visualize OKR planning, review and execution.

Headquartered in Fremont, California, with offices in Singapore, India and Japan, Profit.co announced today it has raised $11 million led by Elevation Capital. The company says it has grown nine times in annual recurring revenue over the past two years. Profit.co’s SaaS platform is used by more than 1,100 customers in 25 countries, including Deckers Brand, Sandvik, Deriv, Singapore’s Open Government and Phoenix Rescue Mission.

Before founding Profit.co in 2018, CEO Bastin Gerald worked at companies ranging from startups like Cashedge and Apptivo to large enterprises like Oracle. During his career, Gerald encountered different ways of managing and implementing strategies for businesses and clients. He told TechCrunch that businesses of all sizes were eager to adopt methods and products to track their priorities, but had trouble implementing them. While working at Apptivo, Gerald created an implementation model that he realized had the potential to reach a wider audience. This grew into Profit.co.

Companies often use spreadsheets, presentation slides and non-OKR-focused project management software to execute their OKRs, but that makes it harder for businesses to keep up with their plans as they grow and add employees. It also means team members and leaders have trouble seeing exactly how much work other teams are putting into projects.

Other OKR platforms include Microsoft’s Ally.io, Workboard and Gtmhub, but Gerald said Profit.co differentiates by using the PEEL (plan, execute, engage and learn) method for its five key modules.

The first is the strategy module, which helps businesses create a one- to five-year high-level plan. Then the tasks module lets them manage daily tasks, while the OKR module, which supports meetings, bridges the gap between long-term strategies and daily tasks. The final two modules are focused on individual performance: the employee development module includes employee performance assessment and improvement, while the employee engagement module lets them report and get recognized for their accomplishments (a gifting platform will be added to it next month).

Profit.co integrates with Slack, Jira, Salesforce, HubSpot and Oracle, and while OKR is its default methodology, it can also be used with other ones, including SMT. Most of its customers have at least 100 employees, and come from a wide range of sectors, including financial services, telecom, manufacturing, retail, tech and government organizations.

Examples of how companies have used the platform include REHAU, a polymer business with more than 20,000 employees that started Profit.co when it began adopting OKRs. Profit.co helped it increase transparency among employees in different departments. Another is online trading platform Deriv, which used Profit.co to keep teams updated on each other’s targets and progress while scaling up to 1,000 employees in 50 countries.

Profit.co monetizes by charging per user and also offers coaching and consulting services for businesses working on large-scale transformation projects. Part of its funding will be used on product development, including adding 30 new product categories.

In a statement about the funding, Elevation Capital principal Akarsh Shrivastava said, “As teams within organizations become more niche with time, it becomes imperative for business leaders to have a reliable and comprehensive view of whether targets are being met. Profit.co is superbly filling this gap through a combination of deep technical knowledge and a sharp understanding of organizational needs.”

What can the OKR software sector tell us about startup growth more generally?

More TechCrunch

When I attended Automate in Chicago a few weeks back, multiple people thanked me for TechCrunch’s semi-regular robotics job report. It’s always edifying to get that feedback in person. While…

These 81 robotics companies are hiring

The top vehicle safety regulator in the U.S. has launched a formal probe into an April crash involving the all-electric VinFast VF8 SUV that claimed the lives of a family…

VinFast crash that killed family of four now under federal investigation

When putting a video portal in a public park in the middle of New York City, some inappropriate behavior will likely occur. The Portal, the vision of Lithuanian artist and…

NYC-Dublin real-time video portal reopens with some fixes to prevent inappropriate behavior

Longtime New York-based seed investor, Contour Venture Partners, is making progress on its latest flagship fund after lowering its target. The firm closed on $42 million, raised from 64 backers,…

Contour Venture Partners, an early investor in Datadog and Movable Ink, lowers the target for its fifth fund

Meta’s Oversight Board has now extended its scope to include the company’s newest platform, Instagram Threads, and has begun hearing cases from Threads.

Meta’s Oversight Board takes its first Threads case

The company says it’s refocusing and prioritizing fewer initiatives that will have the biggest impact on customers and add value to the business.

SeekOut, a recruiting startup last valued at $1.2 billion, lays off 30% of its workforce

The U.K.’s self-proclaimed “world-leading” regulations for self-driving cars are now official, after the Automated Vehicles (AV) Act received royal assent — the final rubber stamp any legislation must go through…

UK’s autonomous vehicle legislation becomes law, paving the way for first driverless cars by 2026

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved…

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

SoLo Funds CEO Travis Holoway: “Regulators seem driven by press releases when they should be motivated by true consumer protection and empowering equitable solutions.”

Fintech lender SoLo Funds is being sued again by the government over its lending practices

Hard tech startups generate a lot of buzz, but there’s a growing cohort of companies building digital tools squarely focused on making hard tech development faster, more efficient and —…

Rollup wants to be the hardware engineer’s workhorse

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is not just about groundbreaking innovations, insightful panels, and visionary speakers — it’s also about listening to YOU, the audience, and what you feel is top of…

Disrupt Audience Choice vote closes Friday

Google says the new SDK would help Google expand on its core mission of connecting the right audience to the right content at the right time.

Google is launching a new Android feature to drive users back into their installed apps

Jolla has taken the official wraps off the first version of its personal server-based AI assistant in the making. The reborn startup is building a privacy-focused AI device — aka…

Jolla debuts privacy-focused AI hardware

OpenAI is removing one of the voices used by ChatGPT after users found that it sounded similar to Scarlett Johansson, the company announced on Monday. The voice, called Sky, is…

OpenAI to remove ChatGPT’s Scarlett Johansson-like voice

The ChatGPT mobile app’s net revenue first jumped 22% on the day of the GPT-4o launch and continued to grow in the following days.

ChatGPT’s mobile app revenue saw its biggest spike yet following GPT-4o launch

Dating app maker Bumble has acquired Geneva, an online platform built around forming real-world groups and clubs. The company said that the deal is designed to help it expand its…

Bumble buys community building app Geneva to expand further into friendships

CyberArk — one of the army of larger security companies founded out of Israel — is acquiring Venafi, a specialist in machine identity, for $1.54 billion. 

CyberArk snaps up Venafi for $1.54B to ramp up in machine-to-machine security

Founder-market fit is one of the most crucial factors in a startup’s success, and operators (someone involved in the day-to-day operations of a startup) turned founders have an almost unfair advantage…

OpenseedVC, which backs operators in Africa and Europe starting their companies, reaches first close of $10M fund

A Singapore High Court has effectively approved Pine Labs’ request to shift its operations to India.

Pine Labs gets Singapore court approval to shift base to India

The AI Safety Institute, a U.K. body that aims to assess and address risks in AI platforms, has said it will open a second location in San Francisco. 

UK opens office in San Francisco to tackle AI risk

Companies are always looking for an edge, and searching for ways to encourage their employees to innovate. One way to do that is by running an internal hackathon around a…

Why companies are turning to internal hackathons

Featured Article

I’m rooting for Melinda French Gates to fix tech’s broken ‘brilliant jerk’ culture

Women in tech still face a shocking level of mistreatment at work. Melinda French Gates is one of the few working to change that.

1 day ago
I’m rooting for Melinda French Gates to fix tech’s  broken ‘brilliant jerk’ culture

Blue Origin has successfully completed its NS-25 mission, resuming crewed flights for the first time in nearly two years. The mission brought six tourist crew members to the edge of…

Blue Origin successfully launches its first crewed mission since 2022

Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the top entertainment and sports talent agencies, is hoping to be at the forefront of AI protection services for celebrities in Hollywood. With many…

Hollywood agency CAA aims to help stars manage their own AI likenesses

Expedia says Rathi Murthy and Sreenivas Rachamadugu, respectively its CTO and senior vice president of core services product & engineering, are no longer employed at the travel booking company. In…

Expedia says two execs dismissed after ‘violation of company policy’

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review. This week had two major events from OpenAI and Google. OpenAI’s spring update event saw the reveal of its new model, GPT-4o, which…

OpenAI and Google lay out their competing AI visions

When Jeffrey Wang posted to X asking if anyone wanted to go in on an order of fancy-but-affordable office nap pods, he didn’t expect the post to go viral.

With AI startups booming, nap pods and Silicon Valley hustle culture are back

OpenAI’s Superalignment team, responsible for developing ways to govern and steer “superintelligent” AI systems, was promised 20% of the company’s compute resources, according to a person from that team. But…

OpenAI created a team to control ‘superintelligent’ AI — then let it wither, source says

A new crop of early-stage startups — along with some recent VC investments — illustrates a niche emerging in the autonomous vehicle technology sector. Unlike the companies bringing robotaxis to…

VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads

When the founders of Sagetap, Sahil Khanna and Kevin Hughes, started working at early-stage enterprise software startups, they were surprised to find that the companies they worked at were trying…

Deal Dive: Sagetap looks to bring enterprise software sales into the 21st century