At Pequity, we believe a more diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace starts with how companies compensate their employees. That’s why we founded Pequity 18 months ago — we’re on a mission to make compensation more equitable and scalable for companies around the world.
Today, we’re announcing that Pequity has raised $19 million in funding to build and scale our compensation platform. Through this raise, we’re also welcoming an experienced and connected group of investors to the Pequity Pack – Norwest Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Designer Fund and Scribble Ventures – along with a talented group of angels including Gokul Rajaram, Anne Raimondi, Max Mullen, and many more.
Companies such as Instacart, Scale AI and May Mobility have used Pequity to make thousands of offers, transfers and promotions to date. We’re excited to share more details about how this new funding will support Pequity’s mission, and help us invest in future growth.
Many HR and team leaders have been there: you call a top candidate to share the good news, the team loved them! Now it’s time to negotiate pay. You squint at a spreadsheet of salary ranges, uncertain if the numbers are up to date. You say an amount within the target pay – and the candidate says yes! Elated, you agree and hang up. Then, heart sinking, you realize the salary you just confirmed for this new hire is above a teammate who has been at the company for a year.
Imagine a world where this, and all compensation decisions, had a centralized tool with up-to-date ranges and data, that alerts you when the amount you’re about to offer is above team members. Where you as a leader are alerted to approve pay changes above or below range. Meet Pequity — an intelligent compensation platform that helps companies catch compensation problems before they happen.
I’ve led compensation programs and teams at companies like Instacart, Google and Cruise, and have personally consulted on compensation efforts at dozens of companies in the Bay Area — and can confirm, compensation is complicated.
During my career, I realized that compensation is impossible to do well in a silo. The process is inherently collaborative: compensation teams determine pay ranges, recruiters bring in candidates, and managers push to hire, reward and promote employees.
And yet, time and again, I saw this collaborative process rely on jumbled and confusing workflows that lived across multiple systems like email, Slack, and oh-so-many dreaded spreadsheets. These messy, manual processes increase the chance of making pay decisions that negatively impact a company’s ability to attract and retain world class talent, affecting their competitive edge.
This is where Pequity excels. We’ve built a collaborative, intuitive platform that combines my comp knowledge with my co-founder, Warren Lebovics‘, product and design expertise (developed during his time leading product and design teams at Sony, LinkedIn and Jumpstart). Add in a globally dispersed team passionate about efficiency and pay parity, and we have the perfect blend to build and scale Pequity in the pursuit of decomplicating compensation for all. Pequity is already helping more than 100 fast-growing companies collaborate on equitable and competitive offers by streamlining their compensation processes with automated workflows and real-time analytics.
Getting compensation right can help companies avoid significant costs caused by pay disparities. Prior to using Pequity, one company we worked with had to spend $2 million to correct salary disparities after a handful of new hires were overpaid. Within just 72 hours of implementing Pequity, that same company saved $100,000 in avoided pay disparity costs.
Pequity’s system helps avoid these costly mistakes, by integrating with existing HR tech stacks and equipping companies with the right data and tools – from ranges, peer analysis and market data to historical pay decisions. HR teams configure the settings to match their pay philosophy, and manage approvals and permissions to determine who sees what and when. Meanwhile, company leaders stay informed through automated approvals and reporting, meaning they can focus on running the company instead of being directly involved in every pay decision.
Always focused on the future, Pequity will also soon allow companies to model promotions and merit increases with an algorithm built to increase equitability — all within the companies’ desired budget and rating system.
This funding will also help us grow our team. It has already been used to secure an important hire: we would like to extend a warm welcome to Greg Jizmagian, who is joining Pequity as Head of Engineering. Greg was previously VP of Engineering at If This Then That, and prior to that was an Engineering leader at Amazon, and VP of Engineering at GoPago prior to the company’s acquisition by Amazon.
We expect to double our workforce by the end of 2021, and this funding will help us hire top talent. Pequity is a great place to work, with a world-changing mission, a collaborative and inclusive work environment, and creative people who will inspire you every day to be your best. Want to help create the future of fair pay at a company that really walks the walk on competitive, equitable compensation? Come join the Pequity Pack!
Or if you know any great people who would be good candidates for Pequity, drop us a line!
This funding is an important milestone for Pequity, but it’s also just the beginning of a larger journey of growth and innovation for us. We have the ingredients and the deep compensation expertise to fundamentally revolutionize how compensation is done.
Thanks for reading!
Kaitlyn Knopp
CEO at Pequity
Book a demo here: www.getpequity.com