Donut
Founded 2016 · 64 employees on LinkedIn · 7 known investors
Donut offers a Slack-based tool aimed at improving employee engagement, collaboration, and productivity within teams. It is a workplace software product for internal team connection and engagement.
Also known as Donut Inc.
Founders & leadership
Donut was founded in 2016 by Dan Manian and Jeff Manian.
Investors · 7
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Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements- Undisclosed amountPre-SeedMay 2025Source ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Donut is an employee experience software company that operates inside workplace chat tools, primarily Slack and Microsoft Teams. Its platform covers four main areas: AI-assisted onboarding workflows for new hires, automated peer introductions across teams, peer-to-peer recognition tied to points, badges and rewards, and engagement programs that use prompts, sentiment and participation tracking, and facilitated live sessions. Named product modules include Donut Journeys, Donut Channels, Donut Shoutouts, Donut Integrations and Gatheround by Donut, and the company markets solution sets for onboarding, mentorship, training, recognition, belonging and collaboration.
The onboarding product launches new-hire workflows through an AI agent, automates tasks, messages and polls, and can sync with HRIS or ATS systems to auto-enroll new hires. The intros product uses smart matching to connect employees across teams. Recognition programs are configurable and automated, and engagement tooling measures participation within Slack channels. The company also publishes templates, a blog and a resources library, and offers a pricing overview and an ROI calculator.
External profiling describes Donut as a business and productivity software company providing an employee experience platform for connections among team members through virtual coffee chats, peer learning and DEI discussions, categorized in enterprise software with HR, enterprise communication and workflow automation verticals.
Founding story
Cofounded by Dan Manian, who serves as CEO, and Jeff Manian, who serves as CTO.
Business model
B2B subscription software sold to employers, with free entry points ("Try for Free") for Slack and Microsoft Teams workspaces and published pricing tiers plus an ROI calculator. A private-market profile classifies the business model as B2B with a subscription SaaS customer profile.
Subscription SaaS pricing for workspace-installed products, with free trial/free-start options for Slack and Teams.
Traction
The company reports more than 20,000 companies using the product, 18.5 million introductions made, 555,000 new hires onboarded and 4.8 million automated tasks, messages and polls. A private-market profile lists 63 employees and $12M in total funding.
Latest developments
Current product marketing centers on an AI onboarding agent that launches new-hire workflows and syncs with HRIS/ATS systems, AI-powered smart-match introductions, and Gatheround by Donut for interactive live session facilitation. In November 2025, a private-market data profile recorded Carta and Anthropic as newly added customers.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Positioned in the employee engagement and HR-tech segment for chat-native workplace tools; comparable companies identified include RandomCoffee, CultureBot and Doozy Live. The company states it is used by more than 20,000 teams.
Breadth of chat-native people programs in a single platform — onboarding journeys, algorithmic peer introductions, recognition with points and rewards, and engagement analytics — delivered inside Slack and Teams with HRIS/ATS synchronization rather than as a standalone HR application.
Technology
Software that runs natively inside Slack and Microsoft Teams, using AI for onboarding agents and smart-match introductions, automation of tasks, messages and polls, integrations with HRIS and ATS systems and a broader tool stack, and analytics for engagement, sentiment and participation in Slack channels.
Go-to-market
Self-serve installation and free trials via the Slack and Microsoft Teams app ecosystems, supported by content marketing (blog, templates, resources library), pricing transparency and an ROI calculator, plus customer testimonials from people-operations practitioners.
Employers and people/HR teams — employee experience, people operations and engineering leadership at companies running onboarding, mentorship, recognition and belonging programs, including global and fully remote teams. Named customer references include Ontra, Buffer and Vineskills; a private-market profile also lists Carta and Anthropic as customers.
Geography
Headquartered in New York City, New York, serving distributed and fully remote customer teams.
History
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in New York City. External records list funding events in January 2017, February 2017 and October 2020.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Competitors · 8
by search overlap
Companies competing with Donut for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsA private-market data profile recorded a signal that Donut added Anthropic as a customer.
A private-market data profile recorded a signal that Donut added Carta, Inc. as a customer.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Donutdonut.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Donut do?
- Donut builds Slack and Microsoft Teams software for employee onboarding, introductions, recognition and engagement.
- Who founded Donut?
- Donut was founded by Dan Manian, Jeff Manian in 2016.
- Who are Donut's investors?
- Donut's investors include Accel, Designer Fund, Hack VC, Altos Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Makers Fund, Sky9 Capital.