Female founders launch Gamified Survey platform eeda™ - to replace the annual employee survey

Manchester-based eeda™ is using gamification and always-on listening to give HR teams and their people a tool that works for the modern workforce..
Manchester, UK/ 09, June 2026/eeda™

Two female founders from the fitness and leisure industry have launched eeda™, an AI-powered employee engagement platform designed to make the annual survey obsolete. Elly Colvin and Cat McDermott founded the Manchester-based business in 2024 after spending over a decade each in commercial and people leadership roles, frustrated by a tool that had not meaningfully changed since the 1990s. eeda™ is now live, generating revenue, and serving clients across the UK including KA Leisure, TC Group, and Pendle Leisure.

The platform replaces annual and quarterly surveys with short, gamified weekly check-ins that employees complete voluntarily, earning eedots, a rewards currency redeemable for real vouchers. Leaders receive real-time intelligence without dashboards, chasing, or waiting months for results. A recent client launch achieved 92% employee sign-up in the first week.

The founders cite a broken industry as their motivation. Only 10% of UK employees are actively engaged at work, yet 70% admit to rushing through engagement surveys just to complete them. The data organisations rely on to understand their people is unreliable, delayed, and built for a workforce that no longer exists.

"We had both sat in rooms looking at survey data that told us very little about what was actually happening," says Co-Founder Elly Colvin. "It was a nightmare getting my teams to fill surveys in, and by the time the results landed, the moment had already passed. We built eeda™ because People teams and their people deserve something better."
eeda™ is now developing an AI companion intelligence system, proactive briefing modules for HR leaders, managers, and employees - connecting to over 200 HR systems globally. The development is supported by a UK government innovation grant.

"We are two female founders from outside the traditional HR tech world, building something genuinely new in a space that has been asking the same questions the same way for thirty years," says Co-Founder Cat McDermott. "That outside perspective is exactly why we could see what everyone else had stopped questioning."

eeda™ is an gamified employee engagement platform founded in 2024 by Elly Colvin and Cat McDermott. Headquartered in Manchester, UK, eeda™ replaces outdated annual surveys with always-on, gamified weekly listening that employees want to engage with and leaders can act on in real time. eeda™ is a proud supporter of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter.
Press enquiries: elly@eeda.io · 07988 757 012 · www.eeda.io