Beekeeper, which helps corporations have interaction with their ‘deskless’ frontline workforce, raises $50M • TechCrunch

Beekeeper, a platform for companies to have interaction with frontline staff, has raised $50 million in a Collection C spherical of funding.

Based out of Switzerland in 2011, Beekeeper targets the estimated 80% of the worldwide “deskless” workforce who don’t work from a hard and fast office-based location, spanning hospitality, retail, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, amongst different industries.

Beekeeper’s platform constitutes instruments to assist messaging, surveys, video and voice chats, FAQ chatbots, workflow automation (e.g. for onboarding new hires), shift scheduling, paperwork, varieties, and extra.

On prime of that, Beekeeper additionally packs analytics to serve managers with metrics round engagement.

Different notable gamers within the area embody Connecteam, which lately closed a $120 million spherical of funding, whereas the likes of WorkStep, WorkJam and Skedulo have additionally raised sizable sums of VC money lately.

Collectively, they’re all getting down to clear up an analogous drawback, vis-à-vis how finest to attach with the thousands and thousands of staff not tethered to a desk, and who could solely sporadically have the ability to check-in on-line.

“Beekeeper helps corporations attain and join with frontline workers who don’t work at a desk, communicate dozens of languages, work with their fingers, and often don’t have firm e-mail accounts,” CEO Cris Grossmann instructed TechCrunch. “Our software program permits organizations to streamline nearly each facet of the frontline worker expertise — from automating paper-based processes to distributing shift schedules to digitizing necessary assets like worker handbooks.”

Beekeeper has amassed some big-name clients over its 10-plus years historical past, together with resort large Hilton and meals company Cargill. And as with nearly each different know-how that guarantees to profit both distant or “important” frontline staff, Beekeeper has benefited from the pandemic’s affect on the worldwide workforce when it comes to spurring corporations to modernize how they liaise with their workforce.

“As the general public turned extra conscious of the essential position our frontline workforce performs in each facet of human life, they started dominating information protection and nationwide conversations,” Grossmann continued. “Corporations rapidly found that they couldn’t talk immediately or convey speedy updates to their frontline groups. The usual top-down, word-of-mouth communication channels, classical or social intranets, and bulletin boards they relied on for many years failed. Many needed to implement new applied sciences to attach and empower their frontline staff — and so they wanted to do it quick.”

Path to retention

At its core, connecting and interesting is de facto all about retaining — countering the so-called “nice resignation” and the huge swathe of current unfilled jobs. Decreasing friction and frustrations, and guaranteeing that issues are addressed are pivotal to conserving frontline staff completely satisfied.

“Organizations that depend on frontline labor to make, promote, and distribute their merchandise are being pressured to handle long-standing ache factors round pay, working circumstances, and the worker expertise for his or her frontline groups,” Grossmann mentioned. “Ahead-thinking organizations are taking motion to handle frontline disconnect and excessive turnover in a holistic method that solves it as soon as and for all.”

Before now, Beekeeper had raised round $81 million in financing, and with one other $50 million within the financial institution, the Zurich-based firm mentioned that it plans to double down on product growth and construct on its current progress which it mentioned has seen its income rise by 100% for the reason that begin of the pandemic.

Beekeeper’s Collection C spherical included investments from EGSB, Kreos Capital, Energize, Thayer, SwissCanto, Eager Ventures, Alpana and Verve Capital.