Zeitworks Raises $4.5M in Seed Funding to Democratize Business Process Improvement with Machine Learning

Zero-Disruption Solution Empowers Teams to Be More Effective, Improving Business Processes Faster and More Easily

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Zeitworks came out of stealth mode and announced a $4.5 million Series Seed investment, led by Madrona Venture Group, as it sets off on its mission to maximize human potential at work. Investors JAZZ Venture Partners and Spencer Rascoff, co-founder of Zillow and dot.LA, joined the round, which will provide funding to build the engineering and product teams as Zeitworks refines its product and brings it to market.

Currently only available to select pilot customers, Zeitworks is developing a SaaS platform that leverages machine learning to discover, analyze, and improve customers’ business processes -- without interrupting users or requiring system integrations. The founding leadership team of repeat entrepreneurs Ryan Windham, Ben Elowitz, and Mathew Holloway all experienced the pain of traditional process improvement projects in their careers. In forming Zeitworks, the group set out on a mission to democratize process improvement and make work more rewarding for employees.

“Now more than ever, businesses are under enormous pressure to be more efficient, but the work that teams do has been a black box; impossible to measure, let alone improve,” said CEO Ryan Windham. “With our innovative software solution, we can shine a light on all the work that gets done by teams within the enterprise -- to not only show the bottlenecks but also drive improvements in real-time.”

“The current method of business process improvement is ripe for disruption,” said executive board member Ben Elowitz. “It interrupts workflow, is expensive in terms of dollars and time and doesn’t empower employees to be part of the process. Zeitworks changes the game to use real-world data to find improvements for leaders and teams.”

Using proprietary technology being developed by the company, Zeitworks discovers and measures business process execution step-by-step through the paths workers take in the course of ordinary work. With cloud-based data processing and machine learning, the solution learns from human behavior to find insights and improvements -- without disrupting users or IT staff, and saving countless hours of analyst observations and workshop sessions.

That’s particularly valuable in the current economic environment, when companies don’t have the time or money to hire consultants or take teams away from their work.

“We’ve seen in category after category that bringing insights and actionable improvements to the enterprise drives bottom-line value,” commented Len Jordan, managing director, Madrona Venture Group. “We are excited to back Ryan and the team as they combine the power of machine learning with a low-code approach that enables automation of business-critical tasks across hundreds of billions of dollars of enterprise workforce expenditures.” As part of the financing, Jordan joins Zeitworks’ board.

Zeitworks is headquartered in Seattle and Los Angeles and is rapidly building its product and technology team as it prepares to launch its software-as-a-service product to business customers.

For more information, please visit www.zeitworks.com.

About Zeitworks

We spend a third of our lives at work, and many of us define ourselves by the work we do and the contributions we make. Zeitworks was founded to help people get the most out of their lives by empowering leaders to make informed choices, improve their organizations, and make people happier by helping them focus on what matters the most. We’re passionate about building a diverse and inclusive team, where everyone, from any background, can help us achieve our vision. Zeitworks is led by multi-time entrepreneur Ryan Windham. The company was incubated in Madrona Venture Labs and is backed by Madrona Venture Group and other top investors.