Our Investment in Beekeeper: Using SaaS to Connect the Unconnected
Two billion people — or 80% of the world’s workforce — do not spend their day at a desk. As a result, this massive scattered workforce is often forgotten when it comes to the rapid advances in workplace productivity software the rest of us often take for granted. In many industries, knowledge workers back at HQ get more and more productive while others in the field are often left to fend for themselves.
One of the core problems with workforce communication and management: in the absence of a a corporate email address, how does a security worker talk to HR? How does a cleaner reach out to a colleague or manager?
Aligning employees without email addresses or corporate devices with the entire organisation in a centralised, secure environment is a major challenge. 75% of the non-desk workforce currently use their personal mobile devices to communicate with co-workers, and the lack of functional tools usually forces employees to use consumer-based workarounds like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. Even aside from the obvious management & oversight challenges associated with this, cybersecurity scandals and GDPR compliance drive home the inadequacy of this approach.
Beekeeper has emphatically solved this problem. They’ve built the world’s most flexible secure communication and operations platform for non-desk based and on-demand workers. Powerful tools to allow communication between workers and managers means higher team engagement, a more cohesive culture and reduced turnover.
Over the last few years, we’ve watched Beekeeper founders Cris & Flavio and their team build a world-class product and exceptional culture. They’ve gone head-to-head with some of the world’s leading employee communications platforms, and won. Repeatedly. They are the perfect example of best in class SaaS products we believe will continue to emerge from Europe at an accelerating pace.
Beekeeper’s approach — which was designed for the hospitality, manufacturing, retail, construction, transport and logistics, food production, NGOs and healthcare industries — takes into account how diverse staff can be today. Employees and managers can communicate across languages and geographies using one unified app. Utilising the latest approaches in machine translation, Beekeeper can translate seamlessly across languages — a feat that would have been impossible just a few years ago.
We were impressed to see the team realize the importance of building security, compliance, and integration at the core of the app, making a point of hiring a veteran executive to lead compliance early in the company’s history. The result is a platform that consistently wins over security conscious yet user experience driven enterprises, from Hilton to Heathrow.
At Atomico, we back founders using technology to rewire the world towards something better for as many people as possible. We believe technology should make a positive impact on everyone’s lives and work.
This is why we are proud to join our friends at Keen Ventures and co-lead Beekeeper’s Series A extension. We’re in good company — a diverse group of strategic investors is enthusiastically joining us, including Samsung NEXT, Edenred Capital Partners and Swiss Post.
Beekeeper joins the stable of enterprise SaaS companies that Atomico is proud to support, including Pipedrive, Bitmovin, and Scandit. One thing they all have in common is that they’ve set the world in their sights from the get-go. Beekeeper calls Switzerland home but already serves customers in 130 countries.
We look forward to helping Cris and the Beekeeper build the category winning company we see them being. Now, more than ever, it’s critical that non “knowledge workers” aren’t left behind by the digital transformation occurring absolutely everywhere
