Welcoming Namely

The world of work is changing.

Talent wars, distributed teams, shifting demographics and globalization are just a few of the macro trends affecting where, how and for whom people work, which is drastically transforming company structures and cultures.

As part of this shift, the human resources function is shifting from one of compliance and happiness to one of performance and retention—and business leaders are recognizing the link between business performance and the people in their organization. The best leaders are now empowering HR managers with titles such as “People Analytics” and “Head of Culture” to help drive culture and performance—and to help people succeed. The new HR is highly focused on building and maintaining the best performance organizations and searching for new tools that help employees better succeed.

Enter Namely, a cloud-based people management platform for today’s enterprise. Based in New York City, Namely enables companies to manage their people and teams with data. The platform includes a powerful database, 360° performance feedback, skill tagging, team charting and time-off tracking. The platform is cloud-based and accessible via the web as well as mobile apps, and is already being used by high-growth, creative companies like Saatchi & Saatchi, Buzzfeed, GroupM, Birchbox and Thrillist.

Namely Founder Matt Straz spent the past decade building and running high-performance teams, and wanted to build the set of tools he wished he had to empower his employees in those organizations. Matt most recently co-founded Pictela, the cloud-based brand content platform acquired by AOL, and previously served as senior partner for seven years at MEC, the global media agency.

Matt is a proven Founder who has created a beautiful product to solve a real pain point. As part of our investment process, we shared the Namely software with several Founders in the True portfolio. Within a week, multiple companies had become Namely customers, demonstrating the power of Matt’s vision to transform the “people management” experience.

We are thrilled to lead Namely’s Series A round, joined by Lerer Ventures and Bullpen Capital. And we’re equally excited to add to our growing family of New York companies, which includes Makerbot, littleBits, MoviePass, Keep Holdings, Brewster, appssavvy, Kurtosys and TripleLift, to name a few.

Matt, you’re in good company, and we’re very excited to welcome you to True!

Read more about Namely in Business Insider and PandoDaily.