HR employee benefits platform Fringe raises $17M to offer customizable perks
Summary
Fringe, an HR tech startup enabling companies to offer customizable perks and benefits to employees, today announced that it raised $17 million in a funding round led by Origin Ventures and Felton Group. As opposed to perks tied to physical workplaces, such as gym memberships and catered lunches, Fringe offered and still offers deals from location-agnostic vendors like DoorDash, Uber and Airbnb.Today, Fringe hosts a marketplace of perks from around 450 vendors, including virtual fitness, virtual coaching, wellness online therapy, streaming services, and food and grocery delivery. Companies place the dollars theyd normally spend on lifestyle benefits into the Fringe accounts of employees, where theyre converted to points that can be spent on the aforementioned vendors. Fringe negotiates a discount of between 10% and 60% off the services, which it passes along to the employees through its rebate system.A raft of new startups are competing to offer benefits tailored to a younger, pandemic-era workforce. And Origin puts a twist on the formula, offering financial planning services as a perk.But with over 200 customers, including Chegg, Lemonade and Shipt, Peace believes Fringe is in a place of strength.