The Origin Story Behind Our Mascot: Dash the Sloth
How does a SaaS company mascot defy expectations? How does a mascot leave a memorable impression with customers? More importantly, how does he help an organization unconventionally raise millions of dollars from leading venture capitalists?
It’s time to finally share the story of Dash the Sloth, Procurify’s beloved official mascot. Dash makes slow things fast and he’s helped Procurify raise $20 million in funding.
Why does Procurify have a mascot?
Dash isn’t an ordinary sloth. Sloths are known as the lovable and fun misfits of the animal kingdom, and they’re notoriously sluggish. In other words, they’re lethargic and lazy (and they are A-OK with that!).
That’s why the sloth is the perfect symbol for the old-school procurement workflow – a painfully slow and monotonous process. Well, Dash marches to the beat of his own drum. He proves not all sloths fall into a one-dimensional profile: just like Procurify.
Both Dash and Procurify are not afraid to take risks, defy stereotypes, and make things more efficient by leveraging speed. Dash does this with the help of his trusty jetpack that helps him jet speed through life: a metaphor for Procurify’s speedy tech-enabled procurement solution that shakes up the system.
Where did the idea of a mascot come from?
In 2015, Procurify searched for a mascot that embodied the company’s culture and values of taking risks, putting its people first, and improving age-old processes. During a brainstorming session, the sloth came up and it was love at first sight. Dash was the one. Dash was the perfect personification of our values. And, when it came time to raise money, our prized mascot ended up helping us stand out from the crowd, in an unexpected manner. Little did we know, Dash would help us make quite the impression with investors.
Wait, what? How did Dash the Sloth help Procurify raise money?
Any startup knows how important it is to partner with the right venture capital investors. It’s essential that alignment exists between investors and founders – not just on business objectives and strategies, but on how to build a team effectively and create a long-lasting culture.
To stand out and determine which venture capitalists would best align with Procurify’s culture and mission, Procurify’s CEO Aman chose to impersonate Dash in a furry sloth suit at investor meetings. After all, the saying is ‘go big or go home’ right? In his attempt to symbolize the slow and lumbering procurement process, Aman hoped investors would see right through the costume to understand what Procurify was really about: transformation. Not only did Procurify choose to build a company that put its people first – Procurify also transformed the slow and paper-heavy procurement process with a platform that was intuitive, simple, and surprisingly fast.
Donning the Dash suit at meetings granted Aman the power to immediately symbolize everything Procurify stood for. Investors were a little confused at first – after all, it’s not every day they hear a pitch from an entrepreneur in a sloth suit. Still, they liked it. In the end, Procurify raised $20 million in Series B funding.
Dash around the world
Procurify’s unconventional bravery with Dash the Sloth has enabled us to reach organizations around the world. We’ve helped companies improve their spend approval processes by stripping away complexity and automating tedious tasks so people can focus on the more strategic and value-added tasks at their jobs. We’ve reinvented how businesses spend and, to be honest, we like to think we’ve reinvented how companies use mascots too.
Interested in our transformative purchasing software? Learn more about Procurify on our website and our Resources page.
Want to learn more about Procurify? Let Dash explain exactly what we do in this video:
