INVESTING IN THE WORLD LEADERS OF STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING

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25 NOVEMBER 2022

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END-TO-END STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING  

We are beyond excited to announce our investment in eQ8’s $5.5 million Series A round. eQ8 is an end-to-end Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) SaaS platform, focused on the translation of strategy into workforce implications to ensure businesses are aligned with their purpose. ‍

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THE PROBLEM

There has always been a mismatch in the rate of change between organisations and technology. Organisations typically change logarithmically (slow) whilst technology changes exponentially (fast). Traditionally, this has meant that organisations have made workforce changes reactively as trends materialise, resulting in limited clarity on actionable insights and a failure to execute strategic imperatives.

Over 80% of organisations are unsure if their existing firm contains the right workforce size and shape. Furthermore, over 95% of organisations are unsure of the workforce size and shape they will need in 3-5 years. Current tools in the market are constrained to operational planning, but fail to address strategic initiatives needed to overhaul an organisation’s entire workforce.   ‍

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THE SOLUTION

eQ8 offers an end-to-end SaaS-based SWP platform dedicated to future thinking via strategic alignment. It builds 2-10 year priorities for management teams by leveraging dynamic scenario forecasting to determine the number of people needed and the skills required for an optimal workforce. This solves THE most fundamental question to every organisation: what is their purpose, and what will it take to get there?

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eQ8’s solution is centred around three key SWP outcomes:

Amount: forecasts workforce size (FTE), shape (employee skillsets) and mix needed to deliver the business strategy;

Action: identifies initiatives that will have the biggest impact and ROI in ensuring eQ8’s ability to deliver;

Align; builds shared leadership clarity on future business requirements for coherence across the value chain.  

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The SWP platform has two core product offerings:

Future Skills Forecasting: compares workforce demand to supply to identify at-risk skill shortages, suggest up-skill/re-skill recommendations and forecast emerging skillsets based on the changes in the business or macroeconomic environment.

Integrated External Research Database: scrapes data sources, reports and statistics to provide labour market forecasts, technology and automation predictors, career pathways and salary/skills information.

But don’t just hear it from us – customers of eQ8 have cited it as ‘the most sophisticated product in the SWP market’. eQ8 boasts a list of impressive blue chip customers including Barclays, Metlife and the UN, and has also formed extensive partnerships with data providers including the World Economic Forum, OECD and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

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INVESTMENT THESIS

WE BELIEVE THIS IS THE BEST TEAM IN THE SWP SPACE

There is no better team to lead eQ8 than the thought leaders of the SWP space. Co-Founders and Joint CEOS Alicia Roach and Chris Hare are two of the most well-known figures in the SWP market. Alicia has 20+ years SWP experience and was previously Head of SWP at NBN Co and Qantas. Chris has 20+ years' experience across Strategic Planning, Rewards and Programs Design, including roles as General Manager at NBN and Mirvac and consultant at Mercer and PwC. The team is committed to building out the best product the SWP industry has ever seen. ‍

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GLOBAL DAY 1 WITH CLEAR VALUE PROPOSITION AND MARKET-FIRST CAPABILITIES

eQ8’s solution can be implemented in any company worldwide without any adjustments. eQ8 has been global focused since Day 1, having worked with many customers across dozens of countries to date, with each founder based in the US. There are 98% of global companies in the current pipeline, with the majority of current customers based in the US. With a USD$8.5m TAM forecasted at a 13% CAGR, eQ8 has immense market opportunities.

There are few direct competitors in the SWP space, and eQ8 clearly distinguishes itself through a unique combination of both headcount projections and skillset requirements. Its SWP platform has a wider range of inputs for workforce change and ranks actions by criticality, clearly outlining priority areas for businesses to focus on. Furthermore, eQ8 possesses market-leading dynamic modelling capabilities spanning across the entire organisation from core business, transformation, skills to turnover forecasting. ‍

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TRACTION & CAPITAL EFFICIENCY

Since launching in 2020, eQ8 has achieved impressive numbers with A$3.3m ARR growing at 93% YoY in the last 12 months. The company is highly capital efficient, having been bootstrapped to date and achieving its revenue KPIs with few sales people. eQ8 has been proven to generate sticky, reliable revenue with an average contract length of 36 months. The pilot conversion is also very high at around 60%. On a limited budget, eQ8 has built a world-class solution that is increasingly becoming indispensable to organisations. ‍

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WHERE TO NEXT

In 2022, eQ8 entered a partnership with Mercer aimed at promoting thought leadership to leverage eQ8’s voice and deepening quality of insights at Mercer events. As SWP becomes increasingly used by organisations, eQ8 will lead the charge as the only dedicated end-to-end SWP platform, providing market-first headcount and skill gap projections.

100% of organisations know their workforce will need to change in the next 3-5 years. As eQ8 continues to cement itself as the leader in SWP, we are beyond thrilled to be backing the eQ8 team on their next stage of growth.