Beekeepers’ collaboration platform for frontline workers
While remote collaboration tools are in vogue for office workers, Beekeeper’s offering is targeted at bringing the same to frontline workers.
The company’s mobile platform provides a centralised location, which the company calls a “digital highway”, for all communication and collaboration to pass through, such as information, schedules, workflows and contacts.
Its customers include the likes of Panera Bread, Mandarin Oriental and Wireless Vision, with Beekeeper saying it connects millions of users globally.
Since its foundation in 2011, the company has raised $86mn across seven funding rounds. The company announced Its Series B had raised another $10mn last week from lead investor Energize Ventures, with investment from HighSage Ventures, SwissCanto, Thayer, Swisscom, Investiere, Alpana Ventures, and Swiss Post.
In a press release, Cristian Grossmann, CEO and co-founder of Beekeeper, said: "We take it as a tremendous vote of confidence that we have this type of backing in the current economic environment. We are using this opportunity to invest in innovation and solidify our position as the top communication and operations platform for frontline workers. This is our chance to expand our product offering to anticipate the needs of an evolving market."
Beekeeper said it would use the funding in part to evolve its product into Beekeeper 2.0, including automated translation between different languages for chat messages and surveys, custom chatbots, and integration with other scheduling software.
Juan Muldoon, Partner at Energize Ventures, said: "Technology that supports frontline workers is more important than ever. We have long believed that Beekeeper is setting the standard for how the modern frontline workforce operates and communicates, but the current crisis has given new urgency to the company's mission. Industries with largely deskless workforces - like energy and manufacturing - are digitizing at an accelerating pace, and we believe this digital transformation is here to stay."
