Included

Platform for developing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion within organizations

Company: Included operates an employee engagement and people analytics platform designed to capture and assess Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI) performance. The company's platform delivers discoverability, transparency, and engagement through conversational AI-driven experiences, enabling organizations to scale their diversity program and seamlessly connect and retain their workforce.

HQ Location & Year Founded: Seattle, 2020

Founder: Raghu Gollamudi, Co-founder and CEO, created Included after seeing poorly implemented DEI programs at large corporations where he worked as an Engineering leader. Having successfully launched two SaaS startups in the US, Raghu is on a mission to prove that DEI isn’t a tax, PR issue, or feel-good checkbox, but an opportunity to build more competitive businesses. Raghu holds a degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from India’s Savitribai Phule Pune University.

Funds Raised and VC Investors: $5.4 million from Alumni Ventures, Ascend Venture Capital, Flying Fish Partners, SignalFire, Trilogy Equity Partners

• Where did the idea for Included originate?

I was working at Microsoft for 10 years. While there, I was asked to be champion for DEI and equality, but I realized that the organization never had the intent to go beyond basic staff training on this critical topic. I could see that diverse, underrepresented employees didn’t feel included from a development and cultural standpoint. The current approach was not working. 

I sold my last company in June 2020, which coincided with the murder of George Floyd. I saw companies struggle with inclusion strategy and especially how to measure performance. CEOs had to make statements to show what they were doing to increase representation of Black and Brown men and women. At the executive level below the CEO, leaders were struggling to figure out how they would execute diversity goals. Post-George Floyd, it seemed like every Fortune 1000 company hired Chief Diversity Officers. These people are amazing, but they don’t have the tools and data to succeed. We needed to come up with a data-driven approach to solve this.

• What is the key problem that Included intends to solve? 

Our goal is to help companies build and retain diverse teams that represent their customer base. We focus on the entire employee lifecycle, which includes recruiting, onboarding, retention and promotions. We help Chief Diversity Officers and HR leaders set meaningful, achievable goals. DEI is now part of ESG and 10-K filings. Companies are now disclosing their representation goals just like they do revenue reporting and set goals in order to focus and prioritize. Once they set goals, however, different departments grow differently. We are able to look at past growth rates by department and come up with a strategy. For example, an engineering team may need to focus more on hiring while a sales team may need to focus on retention. We work with companies to set goals, develop a strategy and build an implementation plan. On the recruitment process side, we make sure the process is equitable. We look at whether pass rates, for instance, are comparable between men and women. We make sure every applicant has a seat. Every step in the interview process needs to be inclusive. 

• How are you most differentiated as a service?

Everyone else who is looking at DEI at companies are focused on training, but we are taking a different angle that looks at employee engagement more holistically. We get into the facts and evidence to increase the probability of a diverse hire. We are democratizing diverse hiring and retention by applying automation with human involvement where it can add real value.

• What are the company’s key accomplishments to date?

We have been in business for 1.5 years and have seven customers from very different industries. We have a proven platform and strategy that is applicable for any customer regardless of segment. We raised pre-seed funding $1.9 million, followed by a seed round of $3.5 million. We have recently signed our first six-figure contract and meanwhile have attained SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliance. I was honored to be awarded “Startup CEO of the Year” by Seattle GeekWire.

• What lies ahead in the plans for Included?

We are currently working with HR and strategy consulting firms on our go-to-market channel strategy. We will continue to build a product that focuses on the employee, with an eye toward onboarding and promotions, in addition to recruiting.

Ron’s Take

Events of recent years, culminating in the murder of George Floyd, have called C-suites across the country to the realization that they simply cannot sit still when it comes to building and cultivating diversity in their ranks. Attention must focus on underrepresented employees when it comes to hiring, onboarding, training, retention and advancement. Included is taking a fresh approach that is helping to broaden the view of what is possible based on data, insight and evidence-based strategy. The client companies that they work with today represent the tip of the iceberg of the need and opportunity.

Disclaimer: Alumni Ventures invested in the Series Seed round of Included in Spring 2022.