Mobilizing Over 15 Million Workers and Counting, Firstup Launches to Redefine the Digital Employee Experience for Every Enterprise

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — SocialChorus and Dynamic Signal, two high-growth SaaS leaders in the digital employee experience (DEX) market have combined to create the categorial leader, Firstup, a new company built to reimagine employee connection through transformative workforce communications. Firstup reflects a vision for the future of the modern workforce, in which forward-looking, employee-first companies can reach, connect, and engage every worker, everywhere.

With over 15 million workers on the Firstup platform, spanning 180 countries, the company launches with the foundation of workforce communication pioneers. The strength of Firstup is elevated by the world’s largest customer community of employee experience and communications professionals from nearly 500 companies, including forty percent of the Fortune 100. Combining the breadth and diversity of this customer community along with the only truly advanced and enterprise-grade communication solution that can reach every worker, Firstup is uniquely positioned for strong innovation and growth.

“Our new company takes authentic employee engagement to a whole new level,” said Gary Nakamura, CEO of Firstup. “We are building software to support every employee—for those who work from an office or from home, on the shop floor or on the frontlines—because an integrated, unified workforce is central to business success and vital to company culture. We believe that when organizations create a digital employee experience that works for all, the connection between employees and their companies finally becomes unblocked. The resulting signals create insights about the workforce previously unseen to leadership.”

When companies are unaware of employee sentiment, any undetected disengagement and dissatisfaction can lead to a tipping point in workforce wellbeing. Dubbed as “The Great Resignation of 2021,” the deluge of workers leaving their jobs over the past year propelled us to understand the reasons for this massive shift. So, Firstup commissioned a study of over 23,000 workers across the UK, US, and EU. The independent survey uncovered a palpable call to action for organizations to offer more transparency around goals and initiatives, recognition of and value for employee contributions, and meaningful connection to leaders and colleagues.

“In our customers, we see the bottom-line impact of authentic employee connection to leadership and culture. We can deliver a solution to nearly half of all workers having limited interaction with their senior team and to the two-thirds not confident that the senior team sees their value,” said Nicole Alvino, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Firstup. “This lack of alignment is a huge problem for companies dependent on management relationships to deliver on company goals and foster retention. With sixty-three percent globally and seventy percent of US workers now indicating they prefer working from home, the need for organizations to connect and engage with their employees—wherever they are—is more urgent than ever.”

Click here for full copies of the global or US-specific research reports.

With Firstup, enterprises are able to efficiently reach every employee with the right information at the right time. “Working with hundreds of large enterprises around the world has shown us the impact that authentic employee connection can have on an organization,” said Jim Larrison, Founder and Chief Customer Experience Officer, Firstup. “CEOs can use video to share business updates, line leaders can use campaigns to ensure compliance with safety policies, and employees can foster community through user-generated content straight from their mobile device. Most importantly, the ability to effectively reach all of your workers gives you visibility into who you’re truly connecting with and who is blocked. With those insights, our customers can take action to reach workers who need the most support and further invest in those with the highest potential.”

About Firstup

Firstup is redefining the digital employee experience to put people first and lift companies up. Firstup makes communication solutions that build authentic engagement and create two-way conversation between employees and companies. The company’s powerful orchestration engine connects every worker, everywhere, on any device with personalized information that helps them do their best work. Forty percent of Fortune 100 companies like Amazon, ABInBev, Ford and Pfizer have chosen Firstup to power their frontline, simplify their digital workplace and unlock the potential of their workforces. Learn more at firstup.io.

Author Information

As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.

She brings more than 20 years of experience in technology research and marketing; prior to her current role, she was a Research Analyst at Omdia, authoring market and ecosystem reports on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and User Interface technologies. Sherril was previously Manager of Market Research at Intrado Life and Safety, providing competitive analysis and intelligence, business development support, and analyst relations.

Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.

SHARE:

Latest Insights:

AMD Powers El Capitan, Frontier, and 172 Systems in Latest Top500 Rankings
Olivier Blanchard, Research Director at Futurum, shares his insights on AMD’s supercomputing leadership as El Capitan and Frontier hold top rankings, while AMD expands its global footprint across HPC and AI workloads.
Qualcomm Strengthens Its AI Infrastructure Capabilities By Acquiring Alphawave Semi In A Strategic Move To Deepen Its Presence In Data Center Compute And Connectivity
Olivier Blanchard, Research Director at Futurum, analyzes Qualcomm’s $2.4 billion Alphawave deal and how it expands AI data center capabilities with high-speed connectivity IP.
Salesforce Connections 2025 Introduced Marketing Cloud Next—an AI-Powered Platform That Streamlines Campaign Creation and Monitoring, Expands Agentforce for Automated Marketing Workflows, and Highlights Data Cloud Features Like Zero‑Copy Integration, Unified Customer Profiles, and AI Segmentation
Keith Kirkpatrick, Research Director at Futurum, covers the highlights from Salesforce Connections, including agentic AI in marketing, unified journeys through Marketing Cloud Next, real-time Data Cloud activation, and new retail bundles.

Latest Research:

In our latest Market Brief, The AI-Powered Content Revolution, created in partnership with Egnyte, Futurum explores how AI is transforming cloud content management from static storage into a dynamic system of insight, automation, and compliance. The report offers guidance on how enterprises can deploy AI agents, streamline knowledge discovery, and future-proof their content operations.
In our latest market brief, Modern Data Protection for Modern Threats: A Strategic Blueprint for Cyber Resilience, written in collaboration with Quantum, Futurum outlines how IT leaders can move beyond reactive data protection toward proactive recovery-readiness by implementing a multi-tiered and performance-optimized cyber resilience architecture.
In our latest Market Brief, Building Optimal Cyber Resilience with All-Flash Protection Infrastructure, developed in partnership with Dell Technologies, The Futurum Group explores how next-gen data protection infrastructure can safeguard critical workloads and support rapid recovery, with a focus on Dell’s PowerProtect Data Domain All-Flash appliance.