Today, I am super excited to announce that Third Prime is investing $8 million in Salt Labs, bringing our total funding to $18 million this year. You can read more about that here.
The mission of Salt Labs is to enable hourly workers to own the long-term value of their work. We envision a future where workers are able to capture the value of their work beyond their hourly wage, leading to greater financial freedom and long-term wealth creation.
Since announcing the formation of Salt Labs earlier this year, the team has been heads down building our product, testing our hypotheses, and getting to know our users. We launched our app in our pilot market of Puerto Rico in April of this year and ~75,000 hard working frontline employees who work at places like Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, and Medtronic quickly signed up to use our app to earn Salt for each hour they worked.
We are now ready to bring Salt to enterprise companies as a force multiplier for radically changing employee retention and productivity. To do that, we are partnering with Third Prime to help fund our go to market expansion.
I first got to know General Partner Mike Kim at Third Prime in the context of what I used to do for a living. Mike and his partners are the lead investors in Paywatch, the leader in on-demand pay in Asia. Over a lukewarm cup of coffee in the middle of a noisy shopping mall, we immediately connected over how similarly we see the world. We shared our common views on what drives dauntless success in startups, the unique motion of business-to-business-to-consumer (b2b2c) businesses, and the invariability of the importance of culture.
Working with Mike and Third Prime was an obvious decision for me. First and foremost, all they want to do is build a business. It is amazing how many investors are more interested in building their own business and brand, than the business of the companies in which they are invested. I got a sense of that when all of the Third Prime partners showed up in person at the launch of our first employer partner. They were focused on our product, our users, our rollout, and our mission. Most importantly, they were intent on learning about our product and our business from the ground up, instead of assuming they knew it all. Refreshingly unusual.
Second, Third Prime’s deep experience in financial technology and digital assets is something we are excited to leverage. We are creating a new category of workforce reward called Loyalty Earned Assets, of which Salt is the first. Abstractly, Salt is a store of value, both from the perspective of the employer and employee, and there are only a few investors in the world — Third Prime being one of them — who understand the potential of what that can be. Imagine a world where frontline employees can save, build, and use Salt to enjoy their life outside of work and to build for the future all due to the non-fungibility (and hence savings power) of Salt. Imagine a world where employers can leverage that resource to create retentive behavior at work. These are powerful win/wins that we believe can permanently transform the workplace.
Finally, great company/investor relationships come down to mutual respect and trust. It’s really that simple. And we have that with Third Prime. Our conversations are breviloquent. There is more listening than talking. Misguided self-confidence is a highly reliable indicator of bad judgment, and there’s none of that here. As a founding team, we are trying to do the impossible (again). All of our focus is maniacally on our employers partners, our users, and our mission. And we love that Third Prime sees that, prioritizes that, and believes in that.
When I started Salt Labs, I knew this mountain would be hard to scale. What makes it easier is having amazing partners like Third Prime, Fin Capital, Anthem Ventures, and several others, pulling the wagon right alongside us.
If you think you have what it takes to change the world with us, email us at careers@saltlabs.com.
