Fellow.app raises $6.5 million in seed funding to build employee management software designed to offer personalized recommendations to fuel team’s growth

Fellow.app, a tech startup founded by the former founders of Fluidware, (acquired by SurveyMonkey), has raised $6.5 million in seed capital to build the world’s first software for managers. The round was backed by Inovia Capital, Felicis Ventures, Garage Capital, and a series of prominent angel investors. In conjunction with the funding, the startup also announced Shopify as its first customer.

The Ottawa, Canada-based Fellow was founded in 2017 by Aydin, Samuel Cormier-Iikima, and Amin Mirzaee, the co-founders of Fluidware, which was bootstrapped to just under 100 in staff, before being acquired by SurveyMonkey in 2014. The startup develops an employee management software designed to offer personalized recommendations to fuel team’s growth. Fellow company software provides a platform to offer effective 1-on-1s with teammates, check-ins, performance reviews, praise, feedback and goals, enabling managers to enhance the team bonding.Whether you’re managing a small team or an entire organization, Fellow is a lightweight app for leaders that gives you tools and smart suggestions to power your day.

Fellow.app—the software used by tens of thousands of employees at companies like Shopify, Vidyard, Tulip Retail, and North—was designed to help leaders manage their 1-on-1s, team meetings, feedback, and priorities in one intuitive cloud-based tool.

“We fell in love with the product—how lightweight and easy to use it was and the fact that there finally was a great product built for managers,” said Aydin Senkut from Felicis Ventures.

Aydin Mirzaee, Fellow.app’s CEO, says the product solves a problem he encountered while building his previous company:

“We learned from software for every aspect of our business, from sales to marketing, to customer success. However, as our number of reports grew, we wondered: Why isn’t there a great app for managers of people?… We interviewed industry leaders to determine the traits that make someone a great manager and built our learnings into Fellow—an app that helps managers become exceptional leaders.”

When sales and marketing professionals get hired, they get access to tools like Salesforce, Hubspot, and Marketo. According to Mirzaee, Fellow.app is the equivalent tool for managers of people.

“For far too long companies have ignored manager training and productivity tools,” said Karamdeep Nijjar, partner at Inovia Capital. “Fellow is poised to capture this up-and-coming market.”

Fellow.app’s beta period began with 200 Shopify employees, who provided the feedback necessary to build a truly compelling product. Now, all Shopify employees around the world use Fellow.app to manage their work interactions and exchange peer-to-peer feedback.

“Fellow has been a game changer for us,” said Brittany Forsyth, Shopify’s Chief Talent Officer. “I love how easy it is to use. It intuitively builds into my day-to-day rhythm, and the natural flow of Shopify, making it so much simpler to have valuable conversations.”