As the war for talent rages on, companies across the board are fighting to recruit and retain employees. Employers can use employee benefits to differentiate themselves from competitors and attract top candidates if they use them correctly.
Human resources professionals can use the discretionary benefits management platform offered by Forma to select benefits vendors, process reimbursements, and monitor plan usage through a digital wallet. Forma's product allows companies to offer lower-cost benefits to their employees by streamlining these processes for HR professionals.
Corporate benefits are typically deployed to employees through a top-down model, which is inefficient for employers and employees, according to Fan. The core mission of Forma is to design employee-first benefits programs.
The startup was part of the AngelPad's three-month startup program in the summer of 2018, before it was reported that the company had $265,000 in annual recurring revenue. In the past year, Forma has increased its revenue by 4x and has grown its customer base by 330%, according to the company's co-founder and CEO. The company says it has a 99% customer retention rate.
Fan said that Forma partners with providers to offer benefits in six broad categories. He explained that Forma's customers can design the benefits program they want to bring to employees by picking and choosing offerings from these categories based on their internal budget and strategy.
To implement a benefits program, Forma needs to know a company's budget and how it will be spent, Fan said. The company can design a benefits program that is limited by its imagination. Some of the most popular offerings among Forma's clients are work-from- home, caregiving support programs, and electric vehicle charging credit, but customers can also choose to provide less common benefits, like that.
Forma's benefits marketplace.
Before Forma, the employer was working with single individual program providers one at a time. They don't have to do procurement renewals or individual contracting anymore, so they can design the strategy behind the scenes.
Employees can use the funds in two ways once a company defines their details. The first is on Forma'scurated marketplace of over 250 benefits products, which are typically offered at a 10 to 30 percent discount to retail prices.
Fan said that they contract and work with program providers, benefits providers, service providers and that they embedded these solutions into the marketplace. We allow the companies to let us know which solutions they would like to see, so we expand that marketplace both ways.
Employees who want to spend their benefits budget outside of the marketplace can choose the second option. Fan said that the company issues a pre-programmed debit card, which allows employees to shop anywhere a Visa card is accepted, spending their benefits allowance like a consumer.
Forma has a spending history interface for employees.
Forma has raised $40 million in Series B funding, led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from all of its existing investors. The round was participated in by angel investors. In its Series A round, Emergence Capital gave Forma 15 million dollars, as well as 2.5 million dollars from Stripe and Upside Partnership.
The company plans to double its team size by the year 2023. Fan said that it had grown from 22 employees at the beginning of last year to 140 today.
Forma wants to expand lifestyle benefits into the core benefits space of pre-tax products. Fan shared examples of flexible spending accounts for healthcare and commuter benefits.
The company plans to offer healthcare, dental, and vision insurance benefits as well as retirement savings plans later this year.
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