The best employee rewards and benefits startups you need to know about.
Top 25 employee benefits and rewards startups
or: ‘How to attract the best staff and keep them’
Any truly great business will go out of their way to look after their staff, as retaining good employees is essential for success, stability, growth, planning and a whole host of other things.
And great businesses employ great people (especially at Boomf - but then, we’re biased).
So what is the best way to attract and keep the best people?
One way is to repeatedly up their salaries, but doing this indefinitely doesn’t usually make good financial sense. So many firms find other ways to reward staff – bonus schemes, for example, or other non-financial benefits.
One of the key advantages of employee gifting is the opportunity for the business to show that they actually do care about their staff.
This has become even more important over the past two years, with many employees working from home for the first time, and feeling more than a little isolated.
Throwing an extra £50 into a pay packet is a great gesture, but a £20 thoughtful gift carries more impact – and it usually means far more to the recipient over time.
Many employees value gifts more than money – so it can make good business sense to get gifting as well.
A recent study from the University of Warwick has demonstrated that happiness makes people more productive at work:
“Economists carried out a number of experiments to test the idea that happy employees work harder. In the laboratory, they found happiness made people around 12% more productive.”
OK – that’s enough discussion about the subject. Time to get down to brass tacks.
If you want to get gifting to your employees – or your clients for that matter – then what is the best way to do it?
Well, there are many companies out there who do just that for you. Corporate gifting is big business, and is on the increase. Testament to that fact are the huge number of startups that have appeared in recent years to help you look after your employees with minimum overhead.
Some offer amazing once-in-a-lifetime experiences, some fine-tune gift selection using cutting edge tech. And some just offer great food items, which always go down well with everyone!
To help you get started, we’ve put together a list of 25 top employee benefits and rewards startups, so grab some popcorn, put your feet up and start planning how you will reward your employees with the help of one of these trailblazers.
Stuck for an original idea for something different for your staff? We have you covered. From amazing MallowPops (personalised of course) to Boomf Bombs, and a range of great gifts in between, Boomf has corporate gifting sorted.
&Open
The brains: Ciara Flood, Jonathan Legge, Mark Legge
The HQ: Dublin, Ireland - since 2017
The bottom line: $7.2m capital raised
The letterbox: info@andopen.co
The lowdown:
They call themselves the world’s first happiness platform, aimed at businesses that gift to give back, share the joy and want to show they care. &Open is an employee and customer loyalty platform for modern brands. Their gifting platform can send digital and physical gifts at scale to people all around the world, boosting loyalty, retention and engagement - all from one powerful platform.
Alyce
The brains: Greg Segall
The HQ: Boston, USA - since 2015
The bottom line: $46.8m capital raised
The letterbox: hi@alyce.com
The lowdown:
Alyce is a platform redefining direct mail, swag and gifts with its scalable, sustainable, hyper-personalised approach. It uses personal social data to tell you the perfect gift to give and handles all ordering, shipping, and reporting for 1-10,000 gifts. For clients, Alyce will turn gifting into your highest performing channel, they say, by introducing you to your clients’ #5-9TM interests.
Biscuiteers
The brains: Harriet Hastings
The HQ: London, UK - since 2007
The bottom line: £1.2m capital raised
The letterbox: https://www.biscuiteers.com/contact-us
The lowdown:
Bicuiteers are an award-winning, original hand-made biscuit company, being one of the first companies in the UK to offer luxurious collections of hand-iced biscuits to send as gifts. With exceptional packaging and a range of constantly changing seasonal collections, they believe they've created a whole new sector in the premium gift market. They have perfect gifts for your team, for clients and suppliers – after all, who doesn’t love a biscuit?
Boomf
The brains: Andy Bell, James Middleton
The brawn: Roman Grigoriev, Stepan Galaev
The HQ: Reading, UK - since 2013
The bottom line: Recently acquired
The letterbox: eat@boomf.com
The lowdown:
Boomf is big in employee gifting with their unique personalised marshmallows, as well as a wide range of other gifts and gift boxes, including their famous exploding cards. Their printed marshmallow products are the first of their kind, and a very tasty way to say ‘thank you’, ‘you’re appreciated’ or any other message you want to share! Their exploding cards are not just memorable, but also extremely viral when posted on Social Media. Boomf takes personal to a whole new level.
The British Hamper
The brains: James Tod
The HQ: Lincoln, UK - since 2007
The letterbox: corporate@britishhamper.com
The lowdown:
The British Hamper is a family business born from shared enthusiasms for great food, British individuality, and love of gift-giving. Their luxury gift hampers are a celebration of all that is great about the UK; beautifully packed with fantastic food from the finest British artisan producers, they are an excellent way to reflect both British quality and culture, and your own brand values when gift giving to colleagues, clients or other valued stakeholders.
Whether you're ordering 1 hamper or 10,000 every one of their gift hampers is carefully hand-packed into high-quality wicker or box hampers and delivered across the UK, EU and worldwide.
Caroo
The brains: Andy Mackensen, Chelsie Rae Lee, Sean Patrick Kelly
The HQ: Los Angeles, USA - since 2014
The letterbox: https://caroo.com/contact/
The lowdown:
Caroo offers premium personalized gifts and goodies, all carefully curated to show your staff that you care. Find curated gift boxes to nourish, inspire, and connect your team. After you find the perfect options, their streamlined platform even makes it easy to personalise, ship, and even track your gifts.
CorporateGift.com
The brains: Asi Erenberg, Maya Mordoch
The HQ: Greater New York Area, USA - since 2015
The letterbox: https://corporategift.com/contact-us/
The lowdown:
Corporate gifting made simple. CorporateGift.com solves your gifting challenges with advanced tech and exceptional customer support. With a range of gifts from every sector – edibles, tech, apparel, drink, experiences and more – the firm offers a well-oiled gifting process to help you boost your business employee relationships.
EvaBot
The brains: Akshay Guptfa323ca, Ashish Kumar, Rabi Gupta, Satwick Saxena
The HQ: San Mateo, California, USA - since 2016
The bottom line: $2.9m capital raised
The letterbox: care@evabot.ai
The lowdown:
Eva must be the simplest way to send personalised corporate gifts at scale to employees or clients. No need to worry about preferences, or even delivery details, ever again. Simply cc. Eva in an email or a chat on Slack. Gift recipients receive a link, Eva asks a few questions, which then becomes a branded gift box – complete with a handwritten note – and all based on their preferences!
Eva's machine intelligence matches hip product companies with the unique interests and attributes of the gift recipient. The result? A perfect automated gift from a curated list of vendors.
Gift Republic
The brains: Harriet Hastings
The HQ: London, UK - since 2006
The letterbox: info@giftrepublic.com
The lowdown:
Gift Republic is a market-leading eCommerce platform that offers unique gifts for those who are looking for something a little bit different. Beginning with ‘Adopt-a-Star’ and ‘Become a Laird or Lady’, they quickly expanded to include a range of gifts, experiences and animal adoptions, aligned with various charities. They offer an ever-expanding range of innovative, quality products. Based in South Wimbledon, and focusing on the latest trends and styles, they inject a bit of extraordinary into the ordinary.
Giftpack
The brains: Archer Chiang, Bing Yue Chen, Irene Ling
The HQ: New York, USA - since 2016
The letterbox: contact@giftpack.ai
The lowdown:
Grow your business with smarter giving! Giftpack offers millions of gifts for your employees and clients, with a data-driven approach. Giftpack's AI-powered solution simplifies the corporate gifting process, amplifying the impact of personalised gifts. They craft memorable touchpoints by sending personalised gifts selected out of a curated pool of 3 million options with just one click. Clever AI technology efficiently analyses each recipient's social media, cultural background, and digital footprint to customize gift options at scale.
Gifts for Good
The brains: Jerry Eisenberg, Laura Hertz
The HQ: Los Angeles, USA - since 2016
The letterbox: https://corporategift.com/contact-us/
The lowdown:
Supporting charities is the driving force of this gifting startup. Curating premium and ethical gifts, Gifts for Good is a corporate gifting company for employees, clients, professionals, and business leads. The gifts support over 40 charities and social enterprises in 65 countries and 19 states who are helping to tackle the world’s most pressing social, economic and environmental challenges. Gift gifts – and help people and the planet at the same time.
Hotel Treats
The brains: Bogdan Dziewierz, Kasia Pankowska, Liza Iakovleva
The HQ: London, UK - since 2017
The letterbox: kasia@hoteltreats.com
The lowdown:
Hotel Treats offer just that – for private and for corporate gifting. Universal, yet personal, and guaranteed to dazzle. Whether your employees and clients love relaxation breaks, fine dining, spa stays or first-class golfing, Hotel Treats will have something for them all. They describe them all in their ‘Library of Luxury’, offering over 1,000 experiences – you can even set a budget and then allow your favoured recipients to choose their own location!
Huggg
The brains: Paul Wickers
The HQ: Bristol, UK - since 2015
The letterbox: hello@huggg.me
The lowdown:
Huggg is a B2B gifting platform that enables companies to reward their teams as well as surprise and delight their customers. Huggg has something for everyone - including Bloom & Wild, Caffè Nero, Virgin Wines, Pasta Evangelists, Tony's Chocolonely and Pikt. A Forbes ‘One to Watch’, Huggg has a wide range of gifts – you can even buy someone a cup of coffee!
IGP
The brains: Manan Sharma, Tarun Joshi
The HQ: Mumbai, India - since 2016
The bottom line: $8m capital raised
The letterbox: support@igp.com
The lowdown:
IGP is India's largest Direct to Consumer (D2C) platform for occasions, as well as a leading B2B2C partner for employee reward management and corporate gifting. IGP sells personalised floral, gourmet and handmade products, via an international platform, and can deliver globally.
Loop & Tie
The brains: Sara Rodell
The HQ: Austin, Texas, USA - since 2013
The bottom line: $350k capital raised
The letterbox: https://www.biscuiteers.com/contact-us
The lowdown:
A woman-founded organisation, Loop & Tie's gift management platform enables you to use gifting to drive employee engagement. And instead of sending everyone the same gift, you can send a collection of gift options based on budget. Your recipients are invited to choose what they want through a fully branded online experience, and their selection is then shipped to them. Loop & Tie’s dashboard gives you real-time data on what recipients pick, their thank you notes, and monthly budget stats. You can even customise the collections with your own products and experiences, and leave Loop & Tie to store and ship your items on demand.
Lula’s Garden
The brains: Harriet Hastings
The HQ: Inglewood, California, USA - since 2016
The bottom line: £1.2m capital raised
The letterbox: hello@lulasgarden.com
The lowdown:
Lula’s Garden was born out of love for succulents and the belief that a gift should serve a higher purpose than the moment itself. They believe that better gifting means better living. For corporate gifting to customers, an eco-conscious succulent on their desk, in a branded pot, is a daily reminder of your business and brand. For employees, it’s a team-member badge of honour. They look great, they last, and they are eco-friendly!
Prsnt
The brains: Daniel Hamilton, David Parr, Hamish Page, Louis Wren, Omid Moallemi
The HQ: Brighton, UK - since 2019
The bottom line: £390k capital raised
The letterbox: info@prsnt.co.uk
The lowdown:
Sustainable, personalised, instant gifting. Sent a gift from your phone in 3 taps! The receiver ‘unwraps’ the present on their smartphone, revealing a QR code that can be used instantly to purchase/collect your chosen gift. You can even include a video message too! For corporate gifting, Prsnt is true desktop-to-app instant gift delivery.
Reachdesk
The brains: Alex Olley, Alex Santos, Jay Radia, Meelan Radia
The HQ: New York, USA - since 2018
The bottom line: $49m capital raised
The letterbox: hello@reachdesk.com
The lowdown:
Reachdesk enables B2B companies to deliver moments that matter, at scale, through data-driven direct mail and gifting. Integrating seamlessly with your existing tech, the Reachdesk platform can deliver gifts and direct mail that build deeper connections with employees, as well as customers, at the click of a button. With every available metric at your fingertips, you can quickly assess the impact, success and ROI of any gifting campaign.
Sendoso
The brains: Braydan Young, Kris Rudeegraap
The HQ: San Francisco, USA - since 2007
The bottom line: $152.7m capital raised
The letterbox: engage@sendoso.com
The lowdown:
Sendoso, the leading Sending Platform, just got better (visit their website to find out how). Sendoso helps you stand out from the crowd, by offering new ways to engage with your staff. By integrating digital and physical sending strategies, you can also increase the effectiveness of your existing funnels and contact systems, and improve your relationships with customers.
Snappy
The brains: Dvir Cohen, Hani Goldstein
The HQ: New York, USA - since 2015
The bottom line: $104.8m capital raised
The letterbox: info@meetsnappy.com
The lowdown:
Sending smiles, one gift at a time, Snappy is a gifting platform that takes away all the hassle from giving gifts and turns it into a one-click experience for the gift giver and a fun and exciting experience for the gift recipient. Using their gifting platform is simple, fast and smooth, and as Snappy themselves say, ‘a little bit of happy goes a long way’.
SwagUp
The brains: Michael Martocci
The HQ: Greater New York Area, USA - since 2017
The letterbox: team@swagup.com
The lowdown:
SwagUp streamlines your gifting process by helping you design, distribute, and even store your swag packs if you don’t have space. They offer a complete end-to-end gifting service to help you send perfectly composed packs full of professionally designed custom company swag straight to your delighted employees or clients.
Tinggly
The brains: Andrew Dobbie, Linas Ceikus, Sam Zawadzki, Tadas Pukas
The HQ: Vilnius, Lithuania - since 2014
The bottom line: $170k capital raised
The letterbox: hello@tinggly.com
The lowdown:
Tinggly is all about the experience - the gift they’ll always remember. Forget ‘stuff’ – and gift a once-in-a-lifetime experience. From high-octane adventures to indulgent spa treats, they’ve scoured the globe to find hundreds of amazing activities, available at one simple price. Experiences are available across the globe – and they are geared up for corporate gifting too, with worldwide delivery, customised and branded gift boxes and no expiration date.
Truly
The brains: Jack Huang
The HQ: London, UK - since 2012
The bottom line: $642k capital raised
The letterbox: concierge@trulyexperiences.com
The lowdown:
“The greatest joys of life are happy memories, your job is to create as many of them as possible” (Brian Tracey). So says the website of Truly – and they mean it! With personalised experiences for all, corporate gifting, for both employees and clients, has never been so memorable. They provide luxury experiences from across the globe designed for every event and occasion. This service is also combined with a bespoke concierge service designed to take the stress out of organising any event.
UncommonGoods
The brains: Dave Bolotsky, Thomas Epting
The HQ: Brooklyn, New York, USA - since 1999
The letterbox: help@uncommongoods.com
The lowdown:
UncommonGoods is a collection of creatively designed, high-quality gifts which bring a breath of fresh air to the sometimes repetitive stock of corporate gifting. UncommonGoods works with a growing network of artists and makers to bring unique and special products to customers across the world.
WeGift
The brains: Aron Alexander
The HQ: London, UK - since 2016
The bottom line: $20m capital raised
The letterbox: sales@wegift.io
The lowdown:
Instant, scalable digital rewards. WeGift helps corporates to deliver happiness to its employees, prospects and clients, and boasts the world’s largest catalogue of digital gift cards, covering every sector, style and – it seems – brand. WeGift operates in more than 30 countries, 22 languages and 20 currencies. Their cloud-based, open API solutions allow businesses to transfer value to consumers, in real-time and globally.
WellBox
The brains: Justin Gilchrist
The HQ: Manchester, UK - since 2020
The letterbox: office@wellboxes.co.uk
The lowdown:
With a range of incredible gifts focused on health and wellbeing, WellBox helps businesses send curated gifts, branded merchandise, and wellness packages to remote employees, event attendees, clients, and work-from-home staff. Choose from Mental Health & Wellbeing, Hampers & Food, Healthy Snacks and Drinks. They also do larger boxes for teams, including games and puzzles. Place one order and treat your entire team!
Data from: crunchbase.com
Correct at time of posting