Resolution Ventures invests in Breakroom

We’re delighted to announce that Resolution Ventures has made a follow-on investment in their most recent £4.9 million funding round as part of the Workertech Partnership. This investment continues the relationship with Breakroom first established via the Resolution Trust in 2019 when co-founders Anna Maybank, James Weiner and Tom Taylor wanted to prove that good quality jobs can be better for both workers and companies.

The Workertech Partnership exists to back early-stage tech start-ups seeking to improve the world of work for those in low-paid or precarious work. Breakroom is a brilliant example of a Workertech venture that does exactly this. Breakroom compares employers using crowdsourced data and ratings from workers at organisations including the NHS, Tesco and Amazon. Information shared by more than 160,000 employees has been used to create ratings for 1,400 UK employers so far.

By presenting this data in an accessible way to workers and job seekers, Breakroom supports people to choose better paid jobs and roles with better working conditions such as paid breaks and flexible shift patterns.

Breakroom has already found big differences in people’s experience of hourly work between sectors. Breakroom’s 2020 report, The State of Hourly Work, compares elements of hourly work across different employers. Hospitality-related roles score most poorly on Breakroom’s measures, whilst rail transport workers come out top. The data also shows big differences between employers within industries. Aldi is the highest scoring supermarket: they pay breaks and are more likely to give good notice of shifts, whereas Iceland is at the bottom on measures of both pay and flexibility.

The Workertech Partnership isn’t just looking for ventures that improve individuals’ working lives. We’re backing ventures that can catalyse system-wide improvement for those in low-paid work. Recent research from the Resolution Foundation found that the risk of reputational damage can incentivise employers to improve working practices. Breakroom’s ratings publicise employment practices, force employers to see how they compare to their rivals, encouraging them to raise standards in order to attract and retain workers to survive among competitors.

CEO Anna Maybank says: “Breakroom’s mission is to make every job a good job. Most people don’t work from offices: they’re on the frontline, working shifts and many of them are paid by the hour. The pandemic has shown that there are too many jobs that are undervalued and need to improve.”

We’re excited to continue working with Breakroom to support them in growing and achieving this mission.

Breakroom’s seed round was led by PROfounders and Revent, with participation from Northzone and Nomad Capital. Angel investors include Jeremy Yap, Peakon CEO, Phil Chambers, and co-founder of Simply Business and CEO at Sanctus, Chris Slater.