After two years, working with hundreds of employers, and supporting more than 5,000 leaves in Cocoon, we have more conviction than ever that technology has the power to transform taking and managing leave. Today, we’re excited to share our evolved and expanded vision, along with the technology that will power it — with an all new look and feel.
In nearly every aspect of life, technology has revolutionized what we can achieve, and the time and effort it takes to do so. We can make a payment instantly, communicate with anyone worldwide, launch new businesses in a matter of clicks…yet when it comes to taking and managing leave, we’re stuck faxing claims, calling 1-800 numbers, and using websites that feel like they’re from the 90s. That’s why it's time for a digital transformation.
Our mission from day one has been to empower every working person to take care of the important things in life when it matters most. After two years, working with hundreds of employers, and supporting more than 5,000 leaves in Cocoon, we have more conviction than ever that technology has the power to transform taking and managing leave. Today, we’re excited to share our evolved and expanded vision, along with the technology that will power it — with an all new look and feel.
We envision a world where everyone fully understands their leave options and can easily access the time and pay available to time. Cocoon pioneered a different leave experience from day one, starting with software that enables employees to plan a compliant leave privately, in their own time, and share with their employer when ready to request a leave. In the coming years, we plan to expand this level of awareness and access by making Cocoon available to anyone globally — whether they work full-time at a venture-backed startup, or part-time at a local hardware store. More immediately, we’re also building product support for any type of leave, from military to bereavement and beyond, plus expanded support for requesting leave as an ADA accommodation.
We envision a world where every working person can afford to take the time they need during life’s pivotal moments. Today, only 25 percent of U.S. workers have access to paid family leave through their employer, making leave prohibitively costly for most. Financial technology products have enormous potential to change this: imagine the ability to click a “top up my pay” button to keep your salary at 100% during a parental leave, or having the option of “leave lending” to get a loan for a medical leave.
Access to pay also requires ensuring employees can easily access the state and private insurance benefits they are entitled to. After a lot of learning, research, and observing shifting state regulations that require direct interaction with claimants (California, for instance, partnered with ID.me and now requires two-factor authentication) we know it’s time to empower employees to file their own claims in a way that still reduces cognitive load.
We’ve invested in a Claims Dashboard to show a dynamic tasklist of claims to-dos and deadlines, plus Claims Copilots that automatically surface key information from your HRIS (like start date, employer EIN, and more) to help employees fill out each form quickly and accurately. For notoriously tricky portals like the California EDD, our Copilot mirrors each screen and shows employees exactly what information to put where. We’re excited to keep pushing the boundaries on tech-enabled claims solutions that take the time to file from hours to minutes.
Beyond the individual experience, we know how time consuming and nerve-wracking leave can be for employers. We’re building toward a future where employers rely on our technology to handle all the logistics of compliance, payroll, and beyond — freeing them to focus on strategic work that humans are uniquely suited for.
Compliance is one of the most notoriously complex and painful parts of the process. The US alone has hundreds of state leave laws, with the legislation landscape changing monthly. Combined with the increase in distributed teams, staying compliant is harder than ever. Cocoon’s proprietary rules engine combines inputs from employees and systems of record then evaluates them against state and federal laws to calculate eligibility, so as laws or your policies change, you can trust Cocoon to capture those changes — no more compliance risk or Googling leave laws every time an employee moves to a new state.
Cocoon brings this same level of automation to managing payroll during leave. Our software estimates any benefits an employee will receive, and combines this with an employer’s policy to calculate what an employer owes. To make HR workflows like payroll even easier, we’re proud to share that Cocoon is the first leave management software to have API integrations with several top HRIS providers, including Workday, BambooHR, Zenefits, and Gusto, to automatically sync information to Cocoon in real time, eliminating manual entry and inconsistencies between tools.
Perfectly coordinating the leave process also means giving employers seamless access to the information they need, all in one place. Our Admin Dashboard offers unmatched visibility to help employers support their teams, troubleshoot when questions arise, and make strategic decisions. Admins can see granular details into each employee’s leave plan and claims task list, while Pay Insights breaks down all payments made to any employee on leave across pay periods and by pay type. For company-wide trends, our Insights Reporting automatically surfaces key data about your leave program, like total benefits recovered and policy utilization across leave types and time frames. We’re excited to release additional Admin visibility tools and more two-way HRIS and payroll integrations in the coming months.
Beyond the expanded vision and product offering behind it, we’re thrilled to reveal an all new look and feel for Cocoon. But it goes deeper than just colors and designs — we set out to rethink our brand to convey the experience we want everyone to have using our product: one that’s caring, trustworthy, empowering, and goes beyond the status quo. Our visual brand now fully embraces this identity and purpose.
“The name ‘Cocoon’ evokes the warmth and protection we hope our product provides, so we decided on a wordmark as our primary logo. The symbol that accompanies it represents the complex web that is leave, but also the support and community Cocoon offers.”
- Camellia Neri, Brand Designer
To help expand awareness about leave options to every working person, whether their company uses Cocoon or not, and give you a glimpse of the future we’re building, we’ve made our leave planning tool publicly available. Simply input your details, and you’ll see a timeline of your leave plan with the leave laws and entitlements that cover it.
We are incredibly grateful to our employer partners, like Carta, Benchling, Notion, and many more for joining us on our journey to build a more humane future of work. We believe our mission will change the world for the better and there’s not a second to waste in creating a world where awareness and access are no longer barriers to taking leave. We’re building the tools our loved ones deserve — and we hope you’ll join us.
Onwards,
Mahima Chawla & Lauren Dai
Cocoon co-founders
