SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Trove, which provides a suite of real-time total compensation tools, announced today that it raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and unveiled its rebrand to Pave. a16z Cultural Leadership Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, Bezos Expeditions (a personal investment company of Jeff Bezos), Dash Fund, and Y Combinator participated in the oversubscribed round. Kristina Shen, General Partner, a16z, will join Pave’s board of directors, and Marc Andreessen will be a board observer.
Compensation and equity benchmarking data have been stale and challenging to acquire for decades, causing a wealth of issues from diversity and inclusion inequities to overall confusion around how to adjust compensation. Pave (formerly Trove) is upending the status quo of manually uniting benchmarking data from several disparate systems by pulling insights into one automated platform. Now, employees and companies alike can enact meaningful change through powerful compensation tools and data.
“It’s time to put cumbersome processes to the side and enter a new era of compensation practices rooted in transparency and fairness for all parties involved,” said Matt Schulman, founder and CEO, Pave. “We’re excited to bring this reality to life by expanding companies’ access to real-time benchmarking tools and insights.”
Pave also announced plans to launch the Pave Compensation Benchmarking Project this week — a compensation data survey with an exclusive group of venture capital firms, including a16z, Bessemer Venture Partners, NEA, Redpoint Ventures, and startup accelerator Y Combinator. Unlike manual data entry-dependent programs of the past, Pave’s leverages API integrations to gather real-time insights that power a benchmarking portal. Participating venture firms’ portfolio companies will be able to opt-into Pave’s survey via one-click HR integrations, unlocking continual access to Pave’s compensation benchmarking, merit cycle planning, and total rewards communications tools.
“Legacy methods of manually gathering compensation data are incredibly tedious and often result in out-dated, irrelevant figures. Pave is transforming how companies visualize this data while empowering employees to decipher the ins and outs of their equity compensation,” said Kristina Shen, General Partner, a16z. "We believe that Pave has the opportunity to own the world of compensation, employee rewards, and beyond, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with Matt and the team at Pave.“
The Pave Compensation Project is the first major initiative of much more to come as Pave uses the Series A funding to further develop its API-powered network of modern compensation tools and data for the global labor market. Venture-backed tech companies are Pave’s initial focus, though it will expand to other industries in the future.
Since Pave was founded in 2019, many startups, such as Allbirds, Checkr, Instabase, ThoughtSpot, Tide, Hover, Plenty, and Relativity Space, have turned to the company to reimagine their compensation practices.
“With Pave, we’ve streamlined our processes and can leverage data to make stronger, more informed compensation decisions,” said Mie Kim, Senior Director of People Operations, ThoughtSpot.
Pave has seen increasing demand, having more than doubled its ARR and the size of its team in the past two months alone.
About Pave
Pave provides a suite of tools to plan and communicate total compensation, eliminating confusion around equity, and helping employees dream big about their future. The Pave suite integrates with dozens of applicant process, HR, and compensation planning tools, including Greenhouse, TriNet, BambooHR, Namely, Carta, Lever, ADP, Workday, Jobvite, Shareworks, Rippling, Justworks, Paylocity, Sapling, UltiPro, and E-Trade. Founded in 2019 by CEO Matt Schulman, Pave is headquartered in San Francisco. Learn more about Pave's vision from our CEO and founder, and visit us at pave.com.
