Whistle, a new generation of employee experience platform, announced today it has raised a $3.2 million seed funding round led by Dundee Venture Capital (VC). Other investors include Chicago-based M25.
“Whistle has an experienced team, a clear vision, a plan for growth and the team is executing well – the key elements we look for when investing in an early-stage company. We are really excited about Whistle’s momentum,” said Ron Watson, Partner at Dundee VC.
Whistle launched a beta version of its first two products in 2021, Whistle Microlearning and Whistle Insights. Whistle Microlearning helps companies deliver a curated employee experience like onboarding and first-time manager training – two of the biggest factors impacting employee retention. Whistle Insights connects learning effectiveness to business outcomes like productivity, safety, and employee retention.
“It is humbling to have the support and validation from two experienced venture capital teams and a small group of private investors who believe in our team and vision this early in our journey,” said Drew Carter, CEO and Co-founder of Whistle. “Our team has worked incredibly hard to get Whistle off the ground. Building an inclusive, innovative, and growing company with this group of people is hugely rewarding.”
Whistle Microlearning takes a more contemporary approach to corporate learning including:
A participant-centric approach, designing around the needs of the busy and often remote worker.
AI informed recommendations to help people focus on the most valuable versus large learning libraries where no one knows what works.
Motivating factors like badges and gamification elements integrated throughout the learning experience.
A robust data infrastructure integrated across the enterprise so learning can be measured against business outcomes for the first time.
“We designed Whistle to quickly impact today’s people challenges – like employee retention, engagement and culture by building and integrating the key elements needed to produce results. No more. No less. Everything else is just a distraction,” said Chris Dornfeld, President and Co-founder of Whistle. “No one needs more distractions, we all need more focus on what is valuable.”
Whistle will use the funds to accelerate the adoption of the Whistle platform and expand its portfolio of products and the Whistle engineering and operating teams.