Huckleberry Raises $2.1M To Help People Get Better Feedback At Work

Huckleberry, the world’s first voice-based 360 feedback platform, today announced it has raised NZD$2.1 million in pre-seed funding to help companies make feedback faster, more human and available for everyone at work, not just leaders. The round was led by Oregon Venture Fund, with support from Archangel Ventures and US & NZ tech founders including Nathan Christensen, (CEO of Mineral), Rowan Simpson (TradeMe) and Serge Van Dam (M-Com).

Founded by Aaron Ward and Diogo Böhm, Huckleberry enables people to talk instead of type when giving feedback to teammates. In just a few minutes, AI listens, guides and delivers practical suggestions, replacing the annual 30-minute surveys and indecipherable reports that make traditional feedback so painful. The result is regular, useful feedback that feels like talking to a personal AI executive coach who helps every employee improve week by week.

“The career journey for most people looks like a drunkard’s walk, zig-zagging from one role to another, hoping to stumble into work that fits,” said Aaron Ward, Co-Founder and CEO. “Honest feedback can help people discover the work they love, where they can play to their natural strengths. Huckleberry turns that insight into a regular habit, not a once-a-year event.”

AI that helps build your career

Huckleberry’s latest feature, an AI-generated Growth Plan, helps people act on what they learn by automatically creating a personalised 90 day plan based on the feedback from colleagues. By embedding AI into the feedback loop, Huckleberry makes it possible for companies to sustain a continuous growth mindset across all their employees, not just the executives with access to expensive coaching programs.

“We built Huckleberry to make meaningful feedback effortless for everyone,” Ward said. “People just talk, AI listens, and the system returns clear, actionable steps. By using voice, we’ve made feedback 10x faster and 100x more human.”

Hands-free mode for HR and managers

For HR leaders and managers, Huckleberry analyzes, summarises, and delivers insights directly to each employee - saving hundreds of hours of manual work and enabling regular, high-quality feedback that drives improvement, without the administrative overhead.

Companies like Oceania Healthcare, a publicly traded retirement village operator, are already seeing results. “Traditional feedback mechanisms can be incredibly resource intensive and confronting for the participants” says Alex Howieson, GM of People and Culture. “What stands out about Huckleberry is how effortless, constructive and engaging it is - actionable feedback in the moment flows to participants and generates deep team led conversations about performance and delivery.”

A global startup, made of New Zealand

Ward, of Ngāti Maru descent but now based in Portland Oregon, previously founded AskNicely, a Series B customer experience platform recognised as Māori Company of the Year at the 2023 NZ HiTech Awards. His experience scaling AskNicely to a global success story inspired the idea for Huckleberry.

“At AskNicely, we saw how using real-time customer feedback to drive recognition for frontline service workers transformed the experience for customers,” Ward said. “With Huckleberry, we’re using feedback from colleagues to help professional workers take charge of their career development. It’s a great example of how AI can make work better for people, not the other way around.”

Co-founder Diogo Böhm, based in Auckland, leads engineering and AI development. The company describes itself as “Made of New Zealand”, combining Kiwi craftsmanship with direct access to the progressive US HR market.

Fueling expansion and product innovation

The funding will be used to accelerate product development, advance its AI models, expand the team and support growth in its key markets in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Huckleberry’s long-term vision is to help one billion people love the work they do, using feedback to grow their impact, reputation and career.

About Huckleberry

Huckleberry is the world’s first voice-based 360 feedback platform, built to help people grow faster at work. Instead of filling out long surveys, teammates just talk for a few minutes while AI analyzes and summarises their feedback instantly, making the process effortless for HR and managers. Headquartered in Portland and Auckland, Huckleberry is redefining how people build great careers and companies build high-performing teams.

Learn more at: gethuckleberry.com

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