Employee communications platform Beekeeper has secured $8 million in Series A financing. Keen Venture Partners led the round, and General Partner Robert Verwaayen has joined the Beekeeper board of directors. The round will be used to fund aggressive U.S. and EMEA market expansion for Beekeeper’s employee-communication app that connects and empowers entire workforces, including non-desk workers, anytime and anywhere.
Beekeeper also welcomed the participation of Fyrfly Venture Partners, Polytech Ecosystem Ventures, and b-to-v Partners. Prominent angels who invested in a personal capacity include Niklas Zennström, Skype co-founder and founding partner at Atomico; Ariel Lüdi, former CEO of hybris and founder at Hammer Team; and Niklas Ostberg, co-founder and CEO Delivery Hero.
“Beekeeper closes the gap between employees working in corporate offices and 70 percent of the global workforce that doesn’t spend their day sitting at a desk,” said Cristian Grossmann, CEO of Beekeeper. “Beekeeper’s mobile app enables all employees to work together better, and drives the top and bottom line through higher productivity and decreased turnover. We saw significant momentum in 2016 from the investments we made in customer success and new features to support major global enterprise customers, and we will use this financing to continue our expansion into new industries and markets in the year ahead.”
Beekeeper’s new financing comes within a year of closing its seed round and marks a time of rapid corporate growth. In the past year, Fortune 500 companies across the globe have adopted Beekeeper to easily connect with and empower employees regardless of role and location. New clients include hospitality giant Mandarin Oriental, retailer Dollar General, and food manufacturer Seaboard Foods, as well as Heathrow Airport, Gate Group and Dnata in the transportation sector. Beekeeper has also increased its user base by more than 500% and currently serves hourly workers in more than 137 countries.
The Beekeeper communication app is designed for those employees who work shifts, don’t sit at desks, and do not have corporate email addresses. This represents more than 2 billion global workers in sectors such as hospitality, retail, manufacturing construction, transportation, food and beverage, and logistics.
With Beekeeper, companies can easily reach, connect and engage these employees to create new ways of working - without requiring a corporate email or mobile number to login. The app is built from the ground up to be easy to use and features peer -to peer messaging, communications streams, group chat, and mobile surveys.
For organizations, Beekeeper matches corporate identity and branding, with automated workflows and scheduling to fully support operational strategies and communication. The app features real-time measurement to improve communication efficiency, gain insight and calculate impact, allowing for continuous optimization. Beekeeper integrates with over 500 tools and can be extended further with shift management, payroll, intranets or HR systems.
