SparkPlug, a San Francisco, CA-based incentive management and wage supplementation platform for frontline workers, announced that it raised $8 million in Series A funding, bringing the company's total investment raised to $11.5 million.
The round was led by Lightbank, with participation from Industry Ventures as well as existing investors TenOneTen Ventures and Jason Calacanis.
The new capital will be used to fuel SparkPlug's aggressive growth plans, which include key executive hires and investments in data, development, and behavioral science expertise to continue expanding its category-defining platform.
"We're excited and energized to be closing this round in the most tumultuous fundraising and macroeconomic environment in recent memory," said Andrew Duffy, CEO, and Co-Founder of SparkPlug. "Its evidence of the critical inflection point brands find themselves in post-pandemic – to survive and thrive, they need to re-invest in the resurgence of the physical retail channel. We're en route to becoming as ubiquitous and essential for influencing brick-and-mortar customer acquisition as Google Ads is for influencing digital customer acquisition."
Since its seed round in February 2021, SparkPlug has continued to see exponential growth across the board, and brands and retailers continue to re-invest in physical sales environments. The company has grown its customer base of brands by 930% and retailers by 1,040% in the same time period.
During the same time period, SparkPlug has seen a 1,930% increase in monthly supplemental wages distributed to frontline employees, helping properly reward, incentivize, and retain top-performing teams for their influential role in driving brand and retailer revenue.
Earlier this year, SparkPlug announced an integration with Square, making it the first sales incentive tool for frontline workers in the Square App Marketplace.
Company: SparkPlug
Raised: $8.0M
Round: Series A
Funding Month: November 2022
Lead Investors: Lightbank
Additional Investors: Industry Ventures, TenOneTen Ventures, and Jason Calacanis
Company Website: https://sparkplug.app/
Software Category: Incentive Management Platform
About the Company: Founded in 2020, SparkPlug is an incentive management and wage supplementation platform for frontline workers. It was founded with one goal: to realign the incentives of brick-and-mortar commerce to make everyone earn like an owner. SparkPlug is a first-of-its-kind platform that gives frontline workers the ability to earn like owners by rewarding them with cash for every sale they make. Since its inception, It has been on a mission to disrupt the hourly labor market by empowering frontline workers with the ability to earn a portion of the revenue they generate when making trusted, personalized recommendations to customers. Working with over 1,000 US retailers and over 200 brand partners, SparkPlug helps businesses harness the power of frontline employees and influence buying decisions at the point of sale. Using SparkPlug's platform, retail and restaurant management teams and brands can create a profit-sharing incentive program or sales contest that integrates directly into an organization's POS system.
Source: https://newsdirect.com/news/sparkplug-secures-8m-in-series-a-funding-to-help-frontline-workers-earn-like-owners-129462543