Investment Shifts company fortunes
AWOMAN whose innovative tech firm is giving victims of sexual harassment a platform to report the crime has revealed how a £1.35m funding boost will allow her to expand the business and help even more people.
Gemma McCall, CEO of Culture Shift, secured the money from VC firm Praetura Ventures earlier this year, effectively securing the business.
Now Ms McCall, who moved to Manchester in the early 2000s, said she will use the investment to develop the firm’s proprietary product and grow the team.
Culture Shift is an online reporting platform which enables people to report any instance of bullying or harassment safely and securely.
Ms McCall said: “We’ve done everything on a shoestring up until now as we’ve always been selffunded, so securing the investment was probably the highlight of my career to date.
“On paper, the odds are so stacked against a woman founder when it comes to seeking investment – particularly being based outside of London, too.
“That’s not to say that I felt in any way discriminated against when I went into funding meetings – I didn’t.
“I knew that the people I was pitching to knew I was a strong founder, but for me, the most important thing was finding the right investors who really believed in us and what we were doing – and it’s not always an easy thing to do. But we really found it with Praetura Ventures and GC Angels and are so pleased they’re on board.”
Explaining how she’ll use the funding to strengthen the product, Ms McCall said: “We’ll develop the product further by giving it new features, while continually re-testing the ones it already has, so we can ensure it’s the best possible resource for survivors of harassment.
“We’re currently working on the product’s data dashboard and user testing it with a number of our current clients to ensure it gives them all the information they need to identify and react to trends – whether that’s ‘micro-aggressions’ which can build up over time, or larger instances of misconduct.”
Ms McCall said she also intends to double the team’s head count to 15 by the end of the year and is actively recruiting for roles in product development and sales, with diversity being a big consideration.
She said: “Diverse tech teams make better products all round, so it’s at the top of our agenda. And it’s about so much more than just gender, it encompasses age, ethnicity, neuro and cognitive diversity too, so we’ll be making a real concerted effort to rid our recruitment process of any unconscious bias.”
Ms McCall said the firm will use some of the funding to better market itself, “shout about the core purpose and break into new markets”.
She added: “We have over 50 customers already, most of them in the higher education sector, but we know the opportunity is absolutely there in the corporate and regulated industries, as more and more sectors realise the impact a bad culture can have on their workplaces.
“Ultimately, we want to positively change the culture across organisations big or small, public or private, reduce stigma around harassment reporting, and empower people to report any instance of harassment without feeling shame.”
The deal was led by Praetura Ventures’ Louise Chapman, Myrto Lalacos and Pete Carway.
Pete will join the Culture Shift board as a non-executive director.
Pete said: “Culture Shift is an impressive start-up offering a way for companies to tackle a serious problem that is afflicting business and wider society, as well as attracting increasing media attention. Gemma, Stuart and Carl are passionate about empowering people and giving them the confidence and tools to report abuse, as well as providing firms with the platform to show they are taking the issues seriously.
“There is a clear market opportunity here targeting enlightened organisations that recognise the risks – reputational, financial and cultural – of failing to tackle workplace bullying and harassment. With our investment, Culture Shift will be able to take its platform beyond its current core market of universities to professional services firms and SMEs, which we know remain behind the curve in proactively combating the issue of bullying and harassment.
We’ve done everything on a shoestring up until now as we’ve always been self-funded
Gemma McCall