Indian community workplace discussion app Hush has raised an undisclosed amount as part of its first external round of investment. The seed round was led by early-stage venture capital firm Accel and saw participation from Sanjay Nadkarni, country manager at Houzz India and a bevy of angel investors.

Ashutosh Dabral, Co-Founder of Hush commented, “It is very important for a company to hear their employees’ real and true opinions. With the escalating gap between available job opportunities and scarcity of talent, employee engagement and retention is important for every employer. We are focused on creating a restricted community for each workplace by encouraging employees to voice their opinions on various discussions, starting polls on relevant topics and exchanging views candidly without the fear of retribution (which is the case with traditional forms of feedback).”

The app which was launched in October last year aims to facilitate candid workplace discussions and enables employee engagement through anonymous conversations. With anonymity as a key tool to facilitate discourses between employees and management, Hush aims to ease communication within organizations through the user community and artificial intelligence, machine learning for content moderation to enable better career growth path for employees. 

The current round of funding will be used to advance Hush’s mobile and web platforms with new and advanced features. With a user base of thousands of employees from more than 50 companies, Hush plans to utilize the seed funds to develop the team, expand to various metro cities in the country, and improve upon existing technology. The focus is also to expand this platform to international markets initially and subsequently over multiple geographies.

Hush has a restricted community for each company. Only verified company employee can join their respective company communities. Verified employees can join their respective company’s communities and discuss everything from nepotism and work culture to interview tips and career growth. Currently, the platform caters to employees from a variety of backgrounds, including unicorn startups, big tech firms, and numerous IT service companies.