Irish footballer Bernard Brogan’s employee engagement platform PepTalk completes $1.4 million funding round

Dublin-based team culture platform PepTalk has completed a $1.4 million funding round. Specifically built to improve employee wellbeing in a hybrid work environment, the startup plans to use the capital to bring on 15 new staff members to support its EMEA and UK expansion plans.

Founded in 2017 by former Head of Human Resources EMEA at Twitter, Michelle Fogarty, Sport and Entertainment consultancy founder, James Brogan, and previous Web Summit speaker and Irish footballer, Bernard Brogan, PepTalk embeds positive behaviours and habits into corporate culture and is built around the philosophy, “Managing people is much more than managing KPIs.”

In a day and age where only 32% of employees describe themselves as thriving (Gallup), and 40% of employees indicating they are considering leaving their employer this year (Microsoft Work Trend Index), for many organisations, PepTalk couldn’t have arrived at a better time.

Using a combination of shared experiences, real conversations, and real-time, team sentiment analysis, PepTalk has seen a massive spike in growth over the past 12 months, doubling turnover, and reaching a significant milestone of over 10,000 users across 4 continents on the platform. The startups’ healthy customer base includes brands Linesight, PRL Group, and Northern Trust.

CEO James Brogan commented, “The world of work is at a crucial inflection point, with the hybrid model now emerging as the clear winner. Organisations must consider how they build trust, connection, and shared experiences in this environment. Hybrid culture needs to be built with much more proactivity and intentionality and that is where our platform is now essential. Ensuring those social behaviours are nudged and enabled wherever employees are based. This is a fundamental part of performance culture and will impact productivity if not addressed.”

PepTalk’s funding round was led by Haatch Ventures, and saw participation from Enterprise Ireland as well as a consortium of angel investors.