Objective Logistics raises $5.3M to take its gamified employee performance tool beyond restaurants

Objective Logistics has raised $5.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Atlas Venture with the aim of expanding MUSE, its worker optimization platform, beyond the restaurant industry into new verticals. Google Ventures and Next View Ventures also participated in the round.

Despite the fact that the name Objective Logistics sounds like something that the Startup Name Generator spit out, the company’s hardly a boring enterprise startup. MUSE adds a game layer to an employee management system to help motivate workers, such as waiters and retail sales staff, with a bit of friendly competition.

MUSE places employees on a leader board and then doles out rewards accordingly. It also provides managers with the resulting data to help them optimize their workforce. On one hand, it’s a clever way of modernizing the kind of informal weekly competitions that used to take place at the retail and restaurant jobs I worked back in high school. But on the other, tracking employees with that level of granularity could actually be bad for workplace morale.

So far, nine restaurant chains have signed up to use the product across a total of 70 locations. Objective Logistics said clients generally see between a 2 to 8 percent increase in top-line sales, as well as an improvement in customer satisfaction.

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To highlight its point, Objective Logistics provided the following client quote from Bill Brayer, Senior VP of Operations at 5Napkin Burger to highlight the platform’s effectiveness:

[Objective Logistics] provides us with the tools to help employees self-motivate and participate in their own development while improving sales, service and productivity.

With a few happy customers under its belt, the startup is off to a solid start. Don’t be surprised if sales staff at your local retail outlets become a bit more eager.