A clear path to successful teams

Human creativity is and will always be at the heart of great organizations of all sizes. Harnessing and streamlining that creativity to achieve goals has been an age-old challenge. Behind every great team is a great manager, but team management as a category has remained more of an art than a science -- sadly underserved by modern software tools.

The challenge of effective management has historically been rooted in a lack of data and lack of effective communication. But in an age where it’s never been easier to gather data about customer interactions, pull signals from systems of record, and communicate in real time, it seems that there should be a modern platform for effective team management.

Every manager is faced with simple questions: “How do I measure and incentivize performance? How do I hold my team and myself accountable? How do I know we’re doing the right things? How do I communicate effectively?” These were exactly the questions that Alexander and Trey were pondering at their first startup SeatMe, and then at Yelp post the company’s acquisition, where they saw teams at scale. Their answer to this was Pathlight.

The insight behind Pathlight is brilliantly simple -- by combining key data insights and communication into one product, managers can effectively work with individuals to set and achieve clear goals. When managers and individuals set better data-driven goals and work together in real time to achieve them, organizations win. Though this all sounds simple, a product that is delightful to use, works seamlessly, eliminates data overload and becomes a daily use case is not easy to build. Pathlight has done just that -- the product has become indispensable with customers actively using it on a daily basis to do their work.

People are at the heart of great organizations and there’s an opportunity to build a new category of software -- one that helps individuals and teams perform at their best and helps organizations harness the creativity of their people. We couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with Pathlight on this journey and lead their Series A.

— ilya