Performance review tool OnLoop raises US$5.5m ahead of its launch

ONLOOP, a startup that wants to shake up how performance reviews are given in the workplace, has raised US$5.5 million in initial investments ahead of its official launch.

Led by MassMutual Ventures and Square Peg, the company also counts other notable angel investors such as XA Network, senior advisor at BCG Aliza Knox, senior vice-president of Uber Andrew Macdonald and Bambos Kaisharis, the director of strategy and operations at Google. Hustle Fund also participated in the round.

Born out of a deep frustration felt towards the inefficiency of outdated performance review cycles, co-founder and chief executive Projjal Ghatak built Onloop as a tool to help companies create more regular daily feedback loops for team development.

"We've all gone through the outdated, largely annoying process of performance review cycles. It's time consuming and inefficient, and teams aren't getting better at the end of them," said Mr Ghatak, who was formerly a general manager and head of global business development at Uber.

The app enables team members to give feedback, post self-reflections and celebrate achievements of their fellow colleagues on the go. From this, the platform then auto-generates performance reviews. The platform has been in private beta since January 2021.

The company said that more than 25 companies and over 650 users - including employees at BCG, Github, Gorillas, H&M, Uber and Snap - have used the platform during its private beta programme.

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One of OnLoop's early adopters, Neha Batra, director of engineering at GitHub, said that performance reviews not only eat up a ton of time for her and her team. It also "isn't enough to develop our engineers", she said, adding that providing feedback needs to be a regular habit.

Ryan Collins, managing director at MassMutual Ventures, added that OnLoop solves a key market pain-point by encouraging and facilitating on-the-go goals, reflection, feedback and development in teams. "It does this through an engaging, interactive and habit-forming user experience."

OnLoop, built and launched during the pandemic, was founded by Mr Ghatak, Subhodeep Bose, Muhammad Mohsin and Anne Lewallen. Mr Bose was a former engineering manager at Uber; Ms Lewallen was previously head of growth at YSC Consulting, and Mr Mohsin, a former engineering lead at Google.

The startup has built up its engineering team out of Singapore, Mr Ghatak said, and will look at building up more functions across its headquarters in the US and Singapore with the fresh funds.