Goodly,
the leading platform for student loan assistance as an employee benefit,
announced today a seed funding round of $1.3 million. The investment was
led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation from Y Combinator,
Ace & Company, Zeno Ventures and several prominent angel investors.
The company, founded in San Francisco by Gregory Poulin and Hemant
Verma, launched at Y Combinator in 2018 to help employers recruit and
retain employees by easing the burden of student loan debt for the 45
million Americans that collectively carry $1.6 trillion in student debt.
“Goodly came from my own personal experience with student loans. After
my father passed away unexpectedly, I had to borrow $80k to pay for my
education at Dartmouth College,” said Gregory Poulin, Co-founder and
CEO. “For many employers, offering student loan assistance is a no
brainer. We’re witnessing the hottest job market in a generation. One
key to improving employee retention is to provide meaningful benefits,
not just fun perks. With 70 percent of employees graduating with
significant student debt, it’s not surprising that job seekers are
attracted to employers that offer help with their student loans.”
Goodly’s platform is the first to allow employers to make monthly
payments, integrated with their payroll, directly to employees’ student
debt. The turnkey platform lets employers make regular contributions
towards paying down employees’ student loans, while allowing employees
to automate their regular payments and access expert student loan
counseling through Goodly’s student loan wellness platform. Goodly’s
platform gives users all of the resources they need to manage their
student loans from one dashboard.
“Goodly’s mission is to help employers recruit and retain employees by
offering practical employee benefits,” said Hemant Verma, Co-founder and
CTO. “Data shows that a majority of millennial employees would trade
everything from PTO, 401k match, and even health insurance to have
student loan benefits. Student loan benefits can be a deciding factor
for job seekers to accept an offer of employment, and a way for
employers to attract top-performing talent by offering to support their
financial future.”
Poulin and Verma bring deep domain expertise in building and scaling
human resources and employee benefits software to Goodly from their
experience as early employees of the human resources startup Rippling.
“As attracting and retaining the best talent at companies becomes
increasingly difficult, we see our portfolio companies using creative
ways to stay competitive,” said Jeff Crowe, managing partner at Norwest
Venture Partners. “Millennials highly value student loan repayment
benefits when choosing employers, and we think Goodly is best positioned
to become the go-to platform for offering this benefit.”
Studies repeatedly show that student loan repayment assistance is one of
the most
desired employee benefits and is essential to attracting top talent.
But, many employers hold off on offering this benefit because they don’t
know where to start, or are worried about the administrative workload it
would add. Goodly’s platform syncs with payroll and HR systems to
automate student loan benefits, streamlining the process for employers.
You can request more information and sign up for a demo of the platform
on Goodly’s
website.
About Goodly
Goodly is the industry leading platform that lets any employer offer
student loan assistance to employees easily and affordably. The turnkey
employer solution lets employers make regular contributions towards
paying down employees’ student loans. By leveraging its superior
technology, Goodly has made student loan benefits accessible and
affordable for teams of any size and budget. Companies that offer Goodly
are able to better attract and retain top talent by providing meaningful
benefits that support and engage employees. For more information, please
visit www.goodlyapp.com.
About Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest is a premier multi-stage investment firm managing more than $7.5
billion in capital. Since our inception, we have invested in more than
600 companies and partner with over 140 active companies across our
venture and growth equity portfolio. The firm invests in early to late
stage companies across a wide range of sectors with a focus on consumer,
enterprise, and healthcare. We offer a deep network of connections,
operating experience, and a wide range of impactful services to help
CEOs and founders scale their businesses. Norwest has offices in Palo
Alto and San Francisco, with subsidiaries in India and Israel. For more
information, please visit www.nvp.com.
Follow Norwest on Twitter @NorwestVP.
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