South African enterprise social networking startup Quainted has raised EUR300,000 (US$319,000) from Italian fitness equipment manufacturer Technogym S.p.A., with the startup relocating to Italy on the back of the funding.
Launched in 2013, Quainted operates an enterprise social network aimed at keeping members of an organisation engaged – with each other, with their bosses, and with their tasks; with a view to improving employee productivity and performance.
The network combines elements of social media and gamification features such as points, badges, leaderboards and financial incentives.
The startup was accepted onto the fitness and health solutions-oriented accelerator run by Technogym’s parent company, Wellness Holding S.r.l., last year, and received seed funding from Wellness Holding.
Technogym has now provided Quainted’s second funding round, which will be used to integrate the Quainted platform with Technogym’s Mywellness Cloud; expand the startup’s clientele in Europe; as well as polish the iOS app.
To work more closely with Technogym, Quainted is relocating its office from Johannesburg to Italy.
“We have already started recruiting a team in Italy and we will be working closely with them to focus on sales and development in Europe,” said Heinrich Tessendorf, co-founder of Quainted.
“We are very excited to start working closely with Technogym. They have developed a truly unique offering with their Mywellness Cloud and we believe they are years ahead of any other fitness equipment manufacturer, not only in terms of distribution, but also in terms of technology.”
