Investible backs organisational design tool Functionly in its $3.6m seed round

Functionly today announced a seed funding round of $3.6m to further its mission to disrupt and democratise organisational design with simple-to-use software.

This marks the second investment from the Investible Early Stage Fund 2, a sector-agnostic fund backing Australian and global companies. The round was led by Black Nova Venture Capital and also included AfterWork Ventures and Rampersand.

This capital will see the company accelerate product and technology development and bring a free version of the software to market, as it further expands into the US, Europe and APAC.

‍Functionly was founded in 2018 by CEO, Tim Brewer and Co-Founder, Damian Bramanis and consists of a global team who have worked with companies including Dropbox, Teamline, Auth0 and Yammer.

Organisational design has typically been the domain of large consulting firms and multi-million dollar projects. Billions are spent on planning, designing and re-designing how businesses are structured. The past couple of years has shown the need for all companies to be able to move faster and with more agility.

Functionly is a cloud software package, enabling leaders to collaboratively design and structure the best organisations. It enables companies to build organisational charts based on what people do, rather than their job titles or functional areas making it easy to use for all executives (not just HR experts) to strategically and intentionally design their organisations.

"The complexities of organisational design and management have too long been left untouched and embraced as-is. We couldn't be more excited that Functionly is turning a new page" said Investible Principal Jake Booker on the round.

Tim Brewer previously advised Dropbox on its distribution strategy before becoming an active investor and company advisor. Functionly was born out of a frustration he saw across multiple companies: “Every manager is struggling to make sure they have the right people, with the right skills in the right place at the right time, and to manage that dynamically as the world around us shifts. No external consultant, no matter how much you pay, can replace the need to know who’s on your team and what they are doing in real-time,” Tim Brewer said.

“More often than not the cost in delays and mis-alignment within a company is even more expensive than the consulting fees. I’m not saying the McKinsey’s and Deloitte’s of this world don’t have a role, but with effective software like Functionly the outcomes are 100 times faster and always available,” he added.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Functionly’s paid customer base has grown by almost 900% as the urgency increases for businesses to understand and have more granular insight into their teams and personnel, amongst mid to large companies in particular. Notable users of Functionly include HealthEngine, HappyCo and HolonIQ as well as 3000+ other organisations who are navigating organisational design, workforce optimisation or mergers and acquisitions using Functionly's free offering.

Patrick Brothers, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of HolonIQ, when describing his experience with Functionly said, “I could have completely replaced Boston Consulting Group with Functionly and a service layer of expensive advice”.

‍You can try Functionly for free today.