SCOOP: Nashville AI startup cements $3.8 million seed round, rebrands company
The new name is a nod to the startup's Nashville roots
AI used to be easy money — key words: “Used to be”. Investment in the ultra hot sector has sputtered as tech startups struggle to turn enthusiasm into profit. Investment in AI startups fell from $117.16 billion in 2022 to $80.61 billion in 2023 — a 31.2% drop — according to TechCrunch.
Yet, some are still attracting suitors. Teaming is one of them.
The four-year old, Nashville subscription software startup, cemented a $3.8 million seed round Tuesday. The company also adopted a new name: Opre.
“It’s operations and relationships,” says co-founder and CEO Kate O’Neil. “Our platform empowers managers to lead more efficiently and effectively by understanding how team member relationships influence operations. It combines personal insights — communication style and personality types — and performance metrics to provide personalized, timely management recommendations.”
The new name is also a nod to the company’s Nashville roots — a play on the Grand Ole Opry.
Investors
A total of 18 investors came to Opre’s cap table. 17 were angels — 14 had Tennessee ties.
Cascade Seed Fund — an institutional outfit based in Bend, Oregon — led the round.
"We rarely see such a talented team come together again to start a new company," says Robert Pease, Managing Director, Cascade Seed Fund. "They are addressing the challenge that every company in the world is now facing on how to blend online and offline management of a distributed workforce and doing it in a unique and meaningful way."
Opre marked Cascade’s second investment in Tennessee. Eva was the first. Last March, the Pacific coast capital group led the entertainment booking platform’s almost $2 million round.
Opre isn’t waiting to put the money to work. O’Neil says the company will add two to its six person team — a Sales Director and Senior Software Developer — in the next three months. The scrappy startup will also hire a slew of contract software developers and rev up its marketing efforts.
About
O’Neil co-founded the company in 2019 alongside — Tim Mulron and Stephen Franklin. The trio met at LeanKit, a workflow automations company. They all worked in leadership roles. They all three saw a need to help managers, well manage better.
“We knew if we could create better managers, we could create better teams,” exclaims O’Neil.
Unlike other AI and automation platforms, Opre considers the man (and woman) in management.
“People have been left out of the AI and automations loop,” says O’Neil. “AI and automations can perform simple tasks but they can’t replace people. They can’t build relationships.”
She says they can, however, help us understand them. AI and automations enable managers understand relationships more objectively and completely, so they make more informed and more strategic decisions.
Performance Reviews
O’Neil offers performance reviews as an example. Managers often hastily scribble down notes a day, sometimes even just an hour or two, before a 1:1 meeting or employee review. More often than not, those notes only reflect their recent interactions with employees. The review doesn’t consider all the communications or account for performance over the entirety of the time period — monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.
“We aren’t blaming managers. We are managers,” laughs O’Neil. “It’s difficult to track all of these KPIs and communications across multiple platforms when you’re drowning in day to day operations.”
With Opre, comprehensive, objective employee reviews are auto-populated. Using AI and automations, Opre aggregates, sifts through and analyzes pages of online information — emails, team chats (think Slack, Microsoft Teams), meeting minutes and data from task management systems. This information is used to make recommendations to both the manager — on how to manage and motivate employees more effectively — and employees — on .
1:1 Meetings & Relationships
Opre resolves issues outside of employee review periods too.
“At one of our client companies, a manager and a new employee were struggling to work together. Both people felt frustrated,” O’Neil tells TENNBEAT.
They turned Opre to help them suss out the source of the tension.
The software swiftly sorted through discussions to find the answer: The manager didn’t feel heard as the employee asked some of the same questions over and over. The employee, seeking as much clarity as possible, could sense a high degree of frustration.
“Knowing the details of the relationship allowed them to understand each other and address the situation,” says O’Neil.
Administrative Tasks
In between performance reviews and 1:1s, managers can leverage Opre to automate administrative tasks. Take meetings.
With Opre, Zoom (or Google meets) meeting minutes are automatically transcribed and summarized, action items discussed on the call are added to individual team member task lists, and follow-up meeting agendas are formed.
“Managers get to be managers instead of admins,” she says.
Buying the idea
Businesses are buying O’Neil’s idea. 68 organizations — including two Fortune 500 companies, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and Humber College, Canada’s largest college — use Opre.
“The accountability and empathy created with Opre, will make better managers, decrease employee turnover and reduce training timelines,” says O’Neil. “I also believe Opre can change the conversation on AI and automation — from replacing people to understanding them.”