Workshop, Omaha-based startup raises $12 million

Workshop, an email platform for internal communications, announced that the company has raised $12 million in Series A funding. The round was led by McCarthy Capital out of their Emerging Growth strategy. It also included support from a group of prominent Midwest venture funds, including Ludlow Ventures and M25.

The previous round of funding, a seed round of $5 million in July 2022, was barely 18 months prior to this current round of investment. Workshop has emerged as one of the most rapidly expanding internal communication platforms over the course of the past year, attracting hundreds of new clients and ensuring that emails are sent to well over a million staff members. It is now the tool of choice for sending emails to employees that are directed towards the public at Fortune 500 firms and name-brand organisations all over the world, such as Papa John’s, Steve Madden, Edelman Financial, Northern Tool, Movement Mortgage, and many more.

Working with Workshop as they make further investments to expand their product and team, McCarthy Capital is delighted to continue supporting them, BJ Hansen, managing director of McCarthy Capital, said. Workshop is committed to establishing itself as the leading internal communications platform, facilitating enhanced engagement and communication between its customers and their employees.

Rick Knudtson (previous co-founder of Flywheel), Ben Stevinson, and Derek Homann (previous co-founders of Median) established Workshop in 2020. With a common goal of assisting other organisations in establishing a positive and engaging corporate culture via effective internal communication, the group united. The most recent investment round underscores the critical function of Workshop within distributed and global teams, which frequently encounter difficulties in establishing cohesion and providing pertinent, interactive materials for their personnel.

Rick Knudtson, co-founder and chief executive officer, stated, “Our eighteen months of partnership with McCarthy Capital have been a tremendous pleasure, and we are ecstatic to continue this journey with them.” “We possess a shared enthusiasm for this market and a comprehensive vision regarding the profound impact that our product will have on it.”

The allocated funds will be utilised to enhance the development of Workshop’s user-friendly internal email solution, recruit further engineering team members, expand Workshop’s sales and marketing endeavours, facilitate the go-to-market strategy, and provide additional support to the customer success team.

Derek Homann, co-founder and chief operating officer of Workshop, remarked that they are thrilled to be adding even more talent to the team in Omaha and beyond as they prepare for an exceptional year. 

Additionally, Workshop announced the official release of its new communications calendar, which is part of a suite of tools designed to improve workflow and assist internal communications teams in managing large volumes of correspondence. Communicators are now able to view all sent and scheduled emails in a single, straightforward calendar view, increasing the likelihood that their messages will be read. It is not difficult to envision how Workshop, in conjunction with functionalities such as sharing and privacy configurations, dynamic distribution lists, and AI-powered content suggestions, could facilitate the administration of internal emails for enterprises and global, dispersed teams.