Giving the Public Sector the Workforce Tech it Deserves: Why We Invested in Holly

We're delighted to announce our investment in Holly, an innovative software platform revolutionizing how over 85,000 city and local governments hire, retain, and manage their workforces. Holly is on a mission to empower the public sector with the workforce it deserves, starting with an AI-powered job design system that helps local governments benchmark salaries and create better roles to bring in talent.

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The Uncommon Thinkers Behind Holly

Holly was founded by two exceptional leaders who bring complementary expertise to the govtech space:

• Brendan Hellweg (Co-CEO): With experience serving across five administrations in three cities, Brendan brings deep firsthand knowledge of public sector challenges and opportunities. He designed and managed Baltimore Health Corps, a 275-person contact tracing employment program, which was recognized by the White House in 2021 as a “national model for centering racial equity in large-scale workforce development.”
• Cherie Chung (Co-CEO): A seasoned business operations and product leader, Cherie has experience scaling several startups; most recently, she helped improve the financial lives of over 5 million Americans through her work at Propel. She was also a Venture for America Fellow, focused on promoting an inclusive future of entrepreneurship while working for impactful startups across the country.

The co-founders met while pursuing joint MBA & MPP degrees at Harvard, where they discovered their shared passion for government innovation with technology. In their third year at Harvard, they launched Holly in September 2023. They conducted extensive research and policy analysis exercises as part of their masters thesis program, speaking with over 100 city managers and HR directors across the country to understand the unique challenges facing public sector HR departments.

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The Problem: A Growing Crisis in Public Service

The public sector is facing unprecedented workforce challenges. With 1.1 million vacant government jobs, $86 billion in state and local overtime costs on the shoulders of taxpayers, and hiring processes that take an average of 135 days (4.5 times longer than the private sector), the situation is reaching a critical point. According to recent data from Forbes, state government employment has declined by 200,000 jobs (3.8%) since February 2020, while local governments have lost 305,000 positions (2.1%). Some contributing factors to this decline include lasting impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Great Resignation, and lack of strategic planning for operations modernization to keep pace with the private sector.

This means government organizations are trying to manage greater responsibilities with increasingly limited resources, leading to staff burnout and decreased job satisfaction. According to Gartner, evolving operations and reimagining value with agile digital platforms and AI decisionmaking was two of the top three priorities for government leaders in 2024.

Brendan and Cherie saw how underserved these public sector HR departments were and decided the best way to help was to scale them with cutting-edge software built specifically for the needs of city and local governments, saving the budget they’d spend on outside consultants for salary benchmarking, crafting compliant job descriptions, and more.

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Enter Holly: AI-Powered Public Sector HR

Holly is building an AI-enabled platform specifically designed for the unique needs of city and local governments, bringing intelligent workflow optimization, data-driven decision making, and cross-agency integration to the public sector. Their solution addresses the challenges facing the 26 million state and local jobs market with innovative features including:

• AI-Driven Job Descriptions: Leveraging a 45,000+ job database to create clearer, compliant job postings faster
• Smart Compensation Analysis: Instant, data-backed salary insights from benchmark cities
• Real-Time Workforce Insights: Simplified analytics to understand current hiring needs 
• Human-Centric Design: Software that treats public servants with hospitality and care

“Holly represents exactly the kind of transformative technology we get excited about—uncommon thinkers in uncommon markets who are reimagining the future of work for public service,” says our Principal, David Perez-Hernandez. “Brendan and Cherie's vision of leveraging AI and software to modernize HR systems has the potential to fundamentally transform how public sector organizations hire, retain, and empower their teams. We're excited to support them on this journey to help the over 85,000 local and city governments manage their workforces in a more efficient and human-centric way."

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The Road Ahead

With public sector hiring taking 4.5 times longer than the private sector, Holly is poised to make a significant impact on public sector employment—covering the over 26 million jobs such as firefighters, 911 dispatchers, social workers, and parks & recreation coordinators—addressing critical inefficiencies in government hiring and workforce management. Their mission to bring millions of Americans into rewarding public service careers through modern, human-centered software couldn't be more timely or important. 

As governments face increasing pressure to do more with less, Holly's AI-native HRIS platform offers a powerful solution to drive performance and collaboration while treating public servants with the respect they deserve.

If you are a government leader looking to improve your hiring process and workforce management, reach out to Holly to learn more.