MeritShare
For nearly a century, Terryberry has helped companies recognize, reward, & inspire their people to achieve their best potential.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Acquisition | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
MeritShare was a Seattle-based startup founded in April 2012 by former WhitePages executives Kevin Nakao and Travis Pearl. Nakao, who served as CEO, was previously the President and COO of WhitePages, while Pearl, the CTO, had a background in product and engineering at WhitePages, Microsoft, and other tech companies. Their shared experience at WhitePages likely provided them with insights into large-scale digital platforms, which they applied to the employee recognition market.
The company operated in the human resources technology market, providing a social and online employee recognition platform for businesses. Its core service was a software-based solution designed to empower employees to give peer-to-peer awards. This approach aimed to shift the focus from traditional, tenure-based awards to recognition tied to specific, performance-related actions. The platform incorporated features like gift cards, real-time social sharing, and gamification to motivate employees and provide analytics for companies to measure performance. MeritShare targeted companies with 10 to 500 employees, offering a subscription-based revenue model with premium tiers ranging from $99 to $299 per month.
The startup was a graduate of the 9Mile Labs accelerator program and secured $20,000 in a seed funding round in March 2013. By December 2013, just 17 months after its founding, MeritShare was acquired by Terryberry, a global employee reward and recognition company. The acquisition was driven by the value of MeritShare's customer base, which was around 100 at the time, its product, and its intellectual property. The deal was not an acqui-hire, and the founders did not join Terryberry. Terryberry integrated MeritShare's technology into its own "GiveaWOW" platform to enhance its social recognition capabilities.
Keywords: employee recognition, peer-to-peer recognition, HR technology, social recognition platform, employee engagement, performance management, gamification, employee motivation, corporate awards, Seattle startup, Kevin Nakao, Travis Pearl, Terryberry acquisition, 9Mile Labs, subscription model, SaaS, employee rewards, human resources software, workplace culture, talent retention