Cleary Technologies, a San Francisco-based startup born out of the Twitter digital remote-forward culture, has seen a substantial increase in the demand for its platform’s ability to build the company “digital lobby”. With 63% of high-revenue unicorn companies and tech startups embracing hybrid or fully remote models, they are stepping up investments in the technology required to build strong employee cultures in the digital world.

Bringing big tech’s approach to the broader market without the need for massive investment, Cleary partners with some of the biggest emerging names in Silicon Valley, including Square, Buzzer, Flexport, Shippo, Cadre, PillClub, Kiavi (formerly LendingHome), among others. This is the beginning of a new category of platforms that place emphasis on building a central, public, digital social gathering place where leaders announce the most important company news, people discover “who’s who”, teams build authentic connections, and employees feel what it’s like to be part of the culture.

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Before starting Cleary, co-founders Thomas Kunjappu and Ryan O’Donnell led the development of a suite of internal tools at Twitter which included the “Birdhouse”, uniting the company in a place for employees to catch up on the latest company news, learn more about what their co-workers were working on, and ask questions of the leadership team.

Square approached the duo in December 2017 to help conceive and create their employee experience hub – dubbed “MySquare” – which rapidly became a part of the fabric of the company. Backed by Crosslink Capital, Quiet Capital, and other high profile investors like Dick Costolo, Former CEO of Twitter, and George Hu, COO, of Twilio, the company has since invested in its product and engineering bench to build a platform that meets the needs of scaling companies.

Starting in early 2020 with the pandemic shift and the rise of remote and hybrid work, the company has risen to the growing challenge of helping organizations build a new digital employee experience.

“The way we communicate and even how we experience work is shifting. Collectively. Individually,” says Kunjappu. “To keep pace, the companies that we partner with are making it a strategic imperative to create meaningful experiences for their employees. This includes building the new operational muscles necessary for a workforce that is more distributed and diverse than ever before. Innovative companies like Twitter have been solving these problems with huge investments in internal teams, but we’re excited to bring that power to everyone.”

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“Companies are looking for a way to replicate what was lost with people no longer going into the office – the company colors on the walls, the branded coffee mugs, t-shirts, tv screens with company news – everything that helped you feel the culture,” adds O’Donnell. “We take a unique approach by looking for ways to build the digital lobby equivalent to all of that. We want to be digitally native-first on those moments – from remote onboarding to the anniversary and birthday card, to all the rituals that allow people to connect and get to know each other.”

Tech leaders share that sentiment. “Maintaining the essence of the company in the digital workplace is critical to success. At Twitter, internal employee experience tools were vital in helping us operate as a cohesive organization as we scaled to a global workforce of thousands. Those tools made us a team,” says Former Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo. “I’m thrilled to see these products at Cleary benefitting so many other growing tech companies.”

“I’ve worked with the Cleary team at three different companies now and I’ve seen the platform transform the way we communicate and work at completely different company sizes – from 80 to close to 5,000,” says Rita Ramakrishnan, Vice President, Head of People and Talent at Cadre, formerly with JUUL Labs and Square.

“As a company built during the 2020 economic crisis, global pandemic, and powerful movements for social justice, innovative tools, policies and commitment to strong workplace culture was critical from Day 1,” says Buzzer founder & CEO Bo Han. “As a fully distributed team, Cleary has been an incredible resource to bring our team closer together and help us operate as one, without the need for massive investment.”

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