May 20 (Reuters) - Employee-rewards platform Awardco

said on Tuesday it has raised $165 million in a funding round

led by investment firms Sixth Street Growth and Spectrum Equity,

pushing its valuation to more than $1 billion.

Existing investors General Catalyst and Qualtrics'

co-founder Ryan Smith also participated in the series B round.

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT

The investment marks a step up from the Utah-based company's

$900 million valuation in 2021, when it had raised $65 million

in one of the largest series A rounds in the HR software as a

service (SaaS) sector.

With the fresh capital infusion, Awardco aims to broaden its

rewards and recognition platform with additional solutions for

employee engagement and performance, leverage AI to gain deeper

workforce insights and automation, improve integration with HR

information systems and scale its global infrastructure.

CONTEXT

Awardco allows companies to move beyond traditional

compensation by offering recognition, rewards and professional

development options to employees.

Its clients include U.S. telecom giant AT&T ( T ) and

Photoshop maker Adobe.

BY THE NUMBERS

The company has grown to more than six million users across

163 countries and offers over 300 million reward options.