Syndio raises $7.5M to squash pay gaps; CEO says COVID-19 crisis puts women and minorities at risk


The Syndio team earlier this year before social distancing. (Syndio Photo) Seattle startup Syndio just raised a $7.5 million investment round to bolster its HR technology that helps companies maintain equal pay and eliminate disparities.
Maria Colacurcio of Syndio Solutions during the GeekWire Elevator Pitch finals at the GeekWire Summit in Seattle last year. (GeekWire Photos / Dan DeLong) Syndio CEO Maria Colacurcio said the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk of pay equity because “when survival is priority No. 1, fairness takes a back seat.” She pointed to the impact on the lowest paid workers , as well as women whose “careers and pay are suffering even more” as the primary caretakers at home.
“Many companies are not considering pay equity impacts as they reduce their workforce, nor are they looking at the makeup of those who remain, which means we could widen the gap,” Colacurcio said. “When we emerge, have we set women and minorities back 50 years?”
Colacurcio, who previously co-founded Smartsheet, said a potential setback can be prevented with tools such as Syndio. The company’s software analyzes salaries, rooting out discriminatory differences in pay that are tied to gender, race, ethnicity or age and providing strategies for fixing those disparities. Its staffing feature, for example, calculates a safe range for new hires to maintain overall equity.
Syndio has more than 60 customers including Nordstrom, Slack, Adobe, Vimeo, and others. Syndio helps safeguard them from pay discrimination lawsuits and negative press. A commitment to wage parity can be also a powerful recruiting tool.
PayScale’s 2020 Gender Pay Gap Report found that “women are still being paid less than men due to no attributable reason other than gender.”
As many startups cut staff and trim expenses amid the economic crisis, Syndio is bucking the trend with plans to grow. Emerson Collective, led by Laurene Powell Jobs, and Pacific Northwest venture capital firm Voyager Capital participated in the Series A round.
“History shows that economic crises exacerbate workforce inequities. But pay equity should not have to take a timeout during downturns,” Fern Mandelbaum, managing director at Emerson, said in a statement. “Maria is an outstanding leader who is matching powerful insights with action to accelerate solutions for building equitable, more inclusive workplaces.”
Data scientist and law professor Zev Eigen launched Syndio in 2016; Colacurcio joined in 2018. Syndio won GeekWire’s Elevator Pitch competition  last year . The 25-person company raised a $5.2 million seed round in January 2019.

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