Unfold.vc invests in Network Perspective.
Network Perspective’s calculations show that after just 3 months of using its proprietary technology, teams are 8 percent more productive, gaining up to half a day a week for so-called deep-work (e.g., coding in the case of developers). The changes are achievable at the level of up to several thousand people, which, in terms of resources, is expected to guarantee hundreds of thousands of hours saved annually. This is important, because in a popandemic world there is a growing demand for new solutions and work models while optimizing employee involvement in repetitive and often unnecessary processes, which, according to the Wroclaw-based company, consume up to 70 percent of working time. Digital tools to improve the efficiency of operations are therefore at a premium. Improvements are sought in a variety of areas: from remote recruitment and onboarding, to maintaining relationships within the company and revising the teamwork experience.
Network Perspective, which focuses on supporting technology companies in Poland and is increasingly emphasizing its presence in the US, has just decided to develop the latter area. It is supported in this by the Wroclaw-based Unfold.vc fund. It has just invested PLN 1 million in the company.
“Network Perspective is a unique project. On the basis of aggregated data, it allows to verify theses that in technology companies, especially those employing more than 500 people, were so far only in the realm of intuition of leaders leading teams. Network Perspective uncovers the causes, not just the symptoms of collaboration overload, as well as the challenges in building relationships. The investment in the company is the result of our collaboration with New York-based gas pedal WEVE. The startup went through the vetting of US experts, which stipulated that only teams with the potential to grow business in the States would participate in the accelerator. As a result, it gained valuable contacts, know-how and a chance for effective expansion. This fact was not one, but an important decision-making aspect for us in the investment process.”
– says Magda Surowiec of the Unfold.vc fund.
The company will use the received capital to develop the platform, which currently consists of three parts: data, intelligence and shares.
In doing so, the developers have a strong focus on privacy, emphasizing a high level of security and data anonymization – metadata is converted to strings on the fly, with no content download, and reports are created only at the team level.
Valuable feedback
The startup’s technology analyzes metadata from IT systems (email, calendar, chats), recreating a collaborative network, so to speak, and then provides leaders and their teams with regular aggregate feedback, reference values, and suggestions for actions and micro-automations whose implementation is expected to measurably improve the quality of work. Among other things, time spent in meetings, deep work and so-called context switching are analyzed, as well as ties within and between teams. These analyses allow for improved communication, efficient and accurate sharing of knowledge and experience within the company, as well as monitoring of workload levels and elimination of inefficient practices. Network Perspective estimates that for a company with 1,000 employees, the implementation of the solution represents a total of 12,000 days saved annually. – One can imagine that this is the equivalent time of dozens of full-time employees for an entire year, the founders explain, and believe that global demand for their technology will grow. Network Perspective already boasts a US client. It is Adaptavist Group, which employs nearly 1,000 people, is a global partner of Atlassian and supports more than half of the Fortune 500 companies. The Wroclaw-based startup has also convinced CD Projekt Red and Allegro, among others, to use its solution.
From science to business
The company was founded in 2020 as a response to the growing need for companies to transform to hybrid and remote work models. The founders come from the world of science. Dr. Anita Zbieg, drawing on her PhD experience in the area of ONA (Organizational Network Analysis), has worked as an expert in network analysis and business collaboration patterns for more than 10 years, supporting the World Bank and Aspen Institute, among others, over the years. Network Perspective’s thriving growth has also been helped by the experience of the other founder, Dr. Blazej Zak, who already has a track record of creating technology startups. He created his first tech-business in 1998, and his biggest technological success was Extradom.
“At Network Perspective, we address the needs of businesses looking for innovative ways of working with an emphasis on maximizing the effectiveness of teams. This trend is already clearly visible in leading technology companies, recognizing the need to analyze collaborative dynamics in areas such as meeting time allocation, contextual change and intensive work.”– Dr. Blazej Zak emphasizes, and cites an experiment conducted by Atlassian, which, by introducing a block of time for so-called deep work, led to increased achievement of weekly goals in 70% of employees.
“Another example is Uber, which has gone a step further by adding a focus aspect to traditional performance evaluation metrics for all engineering teams. Thus, in our approach, we are perfectly in line with important global trends related to the workspace. It’s all about revisiting team collaboration experiences and habits, and providing efficient and easy access to up-to-date data from a wide variety of collaboration systems to increase team productivity. Our smart solutions work and work fully automatically, so we can boast great customer retention.” – Anita Zbieg concludes.
The startup’s founders emphasize that the company is already close to full profitability at this stage and has 100% retention among both customers and employees. It processes metadata describing millions of hours of work and trillions of interactions, which are fed by intelligent algorithms developed in cooperation with Polish professors working in the field of artificial intelligence.
To date, Network Perspective has raised a total of PLN 5 million in funding through investment rounds and grants. In a pre-seed round, the Ataraxy Ventures fund, created by Maciej Noga, founder of Pracuj.pl, among others, invested in Network Perspective.
