Organizational Alignment Platform Koan Announces Unrestricted Free Tier, New Funding and Acquisition to Drive Company Growth

New freemium offering expands availability of human-centered alignment tool to help remote teams become more outcome focused and achieve results

PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 10, 2020 -- Koan, the organizational alignment tool that helps teams manage goals and status collaboratively, today announced an innovative, unrestricted free tier offering and $1M in project funding from BMNT Inc. to accelerate their path to Series A in 2021. The investment is well-timed for the rise in demand of collaboration software tools as the future of work is transformed due to the pandemic. Designed as a layer to uplevel and augment a team’s existing task management tool like Asana, Jira, Trello or monday.com, Koan provides one collaborative platform that facilitates transparency, accountability and visibility into an organization’s goals, replacing the pitfalls of manual processes like ad-hoc emails, spreadsheets and unnecessary meetings. In addition to announcing the free tier and funding, the company has also acquired Horrible Design Co to continue work on the product’s UX and create an alignment and goal-management platform that teams actually want to use.

With the free offering, the company is betting that the intuitive UX and philosophically different approach will hook manager-level employees, and that enterprise-level contracts will follow. Koan helps users manage their goals and visualize how their progress fits into the broader objectives (OKRs) of the organization. Unlike other alignment tools, Koan incorporates a reflective and mindful approach to goal-setting that fosters a more collaborative and invested team culture. Each week, users complete a “reflection,” a status update that includes a confidence score rating and feedback on how a team member feels that the goals will be accomplished by the stated deadline. By clearly connecting each week’s activities to the broader company goals and providing space for improved collaboration across teams through a weekly reflection, Koan helps teams, employees and leaders become more strategic and focus on the activities that matter most.“After founding two successful companies, I’ve seen how critical small daily habits, team alignment and company culture are in achieving larger strategic initiatives,” said Matt Tucker, founder and CEO of Koan. “Unlike other products on the market, we believe managers and their teams have the power to shape company culture and achieve those goals. That’s why we’ve not only developed bottom-up software that’s loved by everyone, but also made it available to everyone as part of our free tier.”The company, which has sustained double digit customer growth throughout the pandemic and has doubled headcount over the past year, has also joined BMNT’s H4XLabs enterprise accelerator to expedite the path towards Series A.“We’re excited to select Koan as part of our enterprise accelerator. We see Koan as a next generation future-of-work tool that will soon be seen as mission-critical to every organization,” said BMNT CEO Peter Newell. “As OKR tools have gained traction over the past several years, there’s been increasing demand for good alignment tools that go beyond the HR-mandated, set-it-and-forget-it performance management products that only come up at the beginning and end of a quarter. The pandemic has only accelerated the need for transparent, goal-setting tools that guide remote teams towards a common goal.”Additionally, Koan acquired Horrible Design Co in August of 2020 as an investment in a human-centered UX, which is now core to the product.“I’m delighted to be working with Koan full-time to help companies feel like a cohesive, healthy, productive community, no matter the circumstances,” says Buck Wilson, Senior Director of Product and Design at Koan. “Koan unburies teams from email, slack notifications and non-stop Zoom meetings, instead allowing teams to stay in sync but work independently; empowered by insight into the contributions they’re making and how they and their teams are aligned.”“We’re excited to continue this momentum into 2021 as we enhance our integrations, continue to grow the product and help our customers achieve great outcomes,” said Koan CEO Matt Tucker. “With Horrible Design Co as a permanent part of the team, this new influx of funding from BMNT, and the free offering, we can build an even better product and spread the word far and wide about Koan. Once teams give it a try, we know they’ll be hooked on the platform.”To learn more about how to get started managing your goals for free, visit koan.co.About KoanKoan is an organizational alignment software platform that helps teams manage goals and status collaboratively. Headquartered in Portland, with a Silicon Valley presence plus a remote team, the company was founded in 2016 by Matt Tucker, the former founder of Jive Software, with the goal of empowering teams to do purposeful work. Built on a foundational belief that strong teams are transparent, collaborative, reflective, human-centered and empowered, Koan helps teams at SurveyMonkey, New Relic and MURAL to inspire, align, and focus their remote workforce with Koan’s easy to use OKR and status platform. Learn more at koan.co.