Sift, the modern people directory has announced the successful completion of a $3 million Series A round of financing. The investment is led by Detroit-based Rock Holdings and will be used to expand Sift's sales and marketing teams as they respond to rising demand from a marketplace hungry for digital workplace solutions in the wake of COVID-19.

Sift is also announcing that Mike Malloy, Chief Amazement Officer at Rock Central and Jared Stasik, Partner at Detroit Venture Partners will be joining Sift Board of Directors.

"Sift is an excellent tool that is uniquely suited to meet this moment of digital-first workspaces," says Jay Farner, CEO of Rock Holdings. "More than ever, organizations across all sectors need user-friendly technology that allows people to navigate their enterprise. Sift makes it simple to find and understand the roles, responsibilities and personalities of colleagues so they can work better together. We are delighted to help propel Sift into their next chapter."

The Series A funding builds on a remarkable year for Sift, which has seen a significant increase in new customers and key executive meetings throughout the first half of 2020.

Sift's platform allows colleagues to find and understand one another, leveraging powerful search across attributes, dynamic people profiles, and easily navigable org charts that are built directly from an organization's data.

"We've used Sift for years to encourage connection, employee engagement and productivity within our family of companies," says Mike Malloy, Chief Amazement Officer at Rock Central and Sift Board Member. "We have more than 20,000 team members across multiple locations, and Sift is like having the whole FOC in your contacts on your phone, just a search away. I don't know how any modern enterprise functions without a tool like Sift."

Demand for enterprise collaboration software had been rising prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and has hit a fever pitch in its wake. For companies that have been thrust into a remote-first workplace nearly overnight, tools that enable connection between colleagues are increasingly mission-critical. Where many cloud-based collaboration tools fall short, however, is the means to understand roles or personalities, or to explore and expand one's network within an organization. Sift fills this gap and enhances discoverability as well as connectivity, letting the right players find and understand one another to collaborate effectively. 

"The rapid migration to distributed work has created an engagement gap between employees and their companies," says John Cannava, VP Technology & Strategic Programs at Ping Identity. "People need solutions that let them orient themselves in an organization, not just a display of a reporting structure. That sort of understanding is business critical. We implemented Sift shortly before the COVID-19 shutdown, and the platform allowed us to maintain, and in some cases improve, our productivity."

"This is a giant, exciting step forward for our business," says Larry Angeli, CEO of Sift. "Connecting the talent companies already have has never been more critical or challenging. As remote work trends accelerate, Sift is bringing tremendous value to organizations that place a high value on employee engagement. The tremendous traction our team achieved over the last year is proof, and this additional funding puts us in a position to make the future of work even more exciting. We will leverage this investment to accelerate product development and expand our growth teams to meet the demands of that market in this critical moment."