PINATA Raises $10M To Expand Front-Line Workforce Optimization
Task management software company PINATA has raised $10 million to help address front-line worker optimization as its customers prepare for a recession.
The new capital will help PINATA “connect the C Suite to the street,” according to a press release last week. The round was led by M13 and Bullpen Capital, with additional participation from the company’s seed investors, bringing the company’s total funding to $11.3 million.
Launched in 2015, PINATA is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that provides companies a suite of tools to manage tasks, staff and gather data, allowing staffing agencies and brands to better manage, track and collect information for and about front-line workers. According to the company, platform activity has increased five-fold year-over-year.
The new funding will allow PINATA to expand its services with new product development, said PINATA CEO Ian Ferguson.
“We’ve built the business so far by focusing on certain types of front-line workforces — brand ambassadors, merchandisers, retail staff, and field sales reps — largely in the beverage/alcohol ecosystem. Looking ahead, we’re excited to build new capabilities to power an even larger universe of teams, and provide value to adjacent business functions, like finance.”
Through the platform, businesses can monitor a brand’s field team of sales, marketing or merchandising representatives by providing a “centralized command center for strategic planning,” a PINATA representative told NOSH.
The platform caters to food and beverage brands as well as beauty, retail and financial companies. PINATA’s clients include Lobos 1707 Tequila, Canteen Spirits, Juneshine, Ranch Rider Spirits Co. and beverage distributor Allied Beverage Group, among others.
“Front-line work is everywhere, and it’s mission critical,” Ferguson said in the company press release. “But it’s also costly, logistically burdensome, and often entirely untrackable. The farther we get from HQ, the greater the risk of wasted time, energy, and resources for management and workers alike.”
PINATA can help brands staff product demonstrations or marketing events with full- and part-time employees while managing consumer feedback through the digital platform. The company would not discuss specific revenue goals but said that the new investment will go towards increasing its value-proposition to clients and providing new use cases for emerging brands.
Adding growth capital in the second half of 2022 was always part of PINATA’s growth trajectory, said a company representative, but the raise does help the platform increase its offerings just when businesses “are trying to do more with less.”
With resources and labor both tight, the ability to efficiently manage remote and temporary workforces via a single platform may be particularly attractive to CPG companies.
“Especially as we look towards a potential recession, the front line will be under pressure from the bottom line,” said Ann Lai, general partner at Bullpen Capital, in the press release. “For operational teams being asked to do more with less, PINATA delivers need-to-have answers to a simple question: How do we best spend our next execution dollar?”
Lai will join PINATA’s Board of Directors along with M13 partner and head of data strategy Rob Olson as part of the recent funding round.
