Frontline Success Leader Beekeeper Lands $50 Million Series C

Beekeeper doubles revenue over the pandemic, captures more than $100M
in total funding and launches new product suite

 

SAN FRANCISCO and ZURICH, Nov. 9, 2022 — Beekeeper, the leading frontline success system, today announced it has raised $50 million in Series C funding after more than doubling revenues since the start of the pandemic. New investors like EGS Beteiligungen and Kreos Capital joined the round alongside existing investors Energize, Thayer, SwissCanto, Keen Ventures, Alpana Ventures, Edenred Capital and Verve Ventures. Beekeeper plans to use this round of funding to grow, continue to invest in product development and establish its leadership in the frontline success category.

“The disconnect between employers and their frontline employees is at an all time high, causing staff shortages and burnout that comes at a hefty economic price,” said Dr. Cristian Grossmann, co-founder and CEO, Beekeeper. “This round of investment validates Beekeeper’s mission to tackle this disconnect and overcome the crippling status-quo it creates. Our mobile-first, frontline success system connects workers to the people, processes and information they need to be productive, engaged, and safe at work. This new way of working gives our customers an unmatched competitive advantage during challenging times.”

“Our investment in Beekeeper comes at a critical time for the frontline workforce. As more industries from manufacturing through to hospitality continue to grow in a challenging global economy, businesses have to keep innovating. Beekeeper is the best in class, mobile-first platform, designed to address frontline business challenges,” said Sean Dunne, General Partner at Kreos Capital.

“More than 80 percent of the global workforce are deskless workers, and as digitization scales and transforms nearly every sector of the economy, there is increasing demand to connect and enable frontline workers with new technologies,” said Juan Muldoon, partner at Energize Ventures. “We believe Beekeeper has set the benchmark for frontline success in industries that are instrumental to the buildout of a sustainable economy – from manufacturing and construction to transportation and logistics. We are excited to continue partnering with Beekeeper as they unlock greater efficiency and connectivity among frontline businesses.”

Since 2020, Beekeeper has seen exceptional growth with thousands of frontline business locations now using the Beekeeper platform in more than 150 countries, which continues to drive investor excitement. From hospitality and retail to manufacturing and construction, Beekeeper is helping customers in key frontline industries thrive during the pre and post-pandemic eras.

“When we opened in the middle of the pandemic, we needed a modern, innovative way for team members to collaborate and work together to provide our guests a world-class experience. And we wanted to weave it into our resort’s operations from their first day on the job. Working with Beekeeper helped us scale quickly and offered a level of security that we needed with so many workers sharing information on their personal devices. When the resort opened its doors, more than 5,000 team members were already up and running on the app and ready to welcome guests. In a fast-paced industry where every second counts, giving staff an easy to use, mobile-first solution that facilitates real-time, enterprise-wide collaboration is a game changer,” said Bob Napierala, VP of Human Resources, Resort World Las Vegas.

Beekeeper’s $50 million Series C round brings the company’s total funding to date to more than $100 million, further demonstrating the industry need for comprehensive frontline success technology. In turn, Beekeeper’s staff has grown to more than 200 team members across the United States and Europe and the company is continuing to hire.

The world’s first voice-based age verification system launched

Congrats to Hammerteam portfolio company privately. Age estimation solution based on voice, image and text is a key component for many uses cases providing age conform access to content and products either online (Metaverse, e-commerce, social) or offline (self checkout). This certified solution is the only privacy preserving solution globally, as the ML models used for the age estimation are on the device and unlike the competition no content (pictures, audio or text) are being sent to a server for processing.

VoiceAssure: The world’s first voice-based age verification system is LIVE:
Team Privately SA has now successfully deployed the world’s first voice-based age verification system in partnership with VerifyMyAge, a leading AV solutions provider. Privately’s Voiceassure has been in operation for about 2 months now and effectively age-gated access to content for a leading adult website. VoiceAssure is a machine based age verification system that infers the speaker’s age on the basis of an audio sample. The user would need to read a random sentence provided on their screen correctly to provide such a sample. Implemented both as an on-web and on-device service , VoiceAssure addresses a number of unique use cases that include a light-touch age gating of restricted sections of adult themed products and services like vaping and gambling but also on-device #web3 environments where user voice is available for age-appropriate adaptation of an app , web experiences or targeted advertising. 100% #privacybydesign implementation is possible as the technology can run on the user’s browser/device ( #edgeAI)without needing the user’s data to ever leave their device. If you are interested to know more please get in touch.

Hammerteam portfolio company zoovu just raised $ 169M

Congrats to Zoovu, a Hammerteam portfolio company, for raising $ 169M. Very proud how many famous brands and platforms like Amazon are using successfully Zoovu‘s AI powered Product discovery platform.

is excited to announce our $169M series C funding!

We are thrilled to announce we’ve raised $169M in Series C funding, led by FTV Capital. We would like to thank FTV Capital for believing in us and understanding the value we bring to both our customers and those who purchase from them with our all-in-one AI-driven product discovery platform.

We are inspired by this huge vote of confidence and shared vision and commitment of our founders, employees, advisory board and investors! We are excited by the journey ahead and to continue our global mission to improve e-commerce with data-driven product discovery for all

 

Scandit: First Unicorn for the Hammerteam

Scandit, a Hammerteam Portfolio Company, passed the magic Mark of $1 billion enterprise valuation based on the $150m Series D round led by Warburg Pincus.

Scandit, the Smart Data Capture Leader, Announces $150m Series D Investment Led by Warburg Pincus

New funding will be used to develop tomorrow’s computer vision technologies to further transform traditional industries and processes

Zurich, Switzerland, 9th February 2022 – Scandit, the global leader in smart data capture, has completed a Series D funding round of $150 million at a company valuation in excess of $1billion. The funding round was led by Warburg Pincus, a leading global growth investor with attrack record of successfully scaling high growth companies, particularly in B2B software. The funding round was significantly oversubscribed with strong participation from Scandit’s existing shareholder base, including Atomico, Forestay Capital, G2VP, GV, Kreos, NGP Capital, Schneider Electric, Sony Innovation Fund by IGV and 1 Swisscom Ventures. To date, Scandit has raised almost $300 million to fuel its global expansion, enabling smart devices to capture data on the edge from barcodes, text, IDs and objects through computer vision in order to automate processes and provide insights that enhance customer engagement and increase worker productivity. Since its Series C funding round in May 2020, the company has more than doubled its annual recurring revenue and now has over 1700 global customers including American Eagle Outfitters, Carrefour, FedEx, Levi’s Strauss & Co., Yamato Transport and Sephora.

Scandit has strengthened its leadership position in its core verticals – retail, transportation and logistics, healthcare and manufacturing – and today is trusted by three of the top five global courier companies and eight of the top ten US grocers. During the pandemic, Scandit has also been providing data capture services to national health organizations such as the NHS in the UK to support Covid-19 programs and initiatives.

Scandit plans to use the additional funding to further expand its global footprint and team with a particular focus on APAC, including Japan, Singapore and South Korea. Since the Series C funding, Scandit’s globally distributed team has increased by 85% with plans to grow by another 50% by the end of 2022. The investment will also be used to continue to drive expansion and innovation in core verticals.

Additionally, the funding will accelerate Scandit’s R&D to advance enterprises’ core business processes with an increased emphasis on AI/ML capabilities and autonomous data capture methods. Scandit Smart Data Capture platform will further augment the intelligence and decision-making of users leading to faster, more accurate and automated outcomes whether on a smartphone, wearables or via robots.

Transforming Enterprises with Smart Data Capture

Accelerated by the pandemic, expectations from employees and customers continue to increase with a preference for more digital experiences. Enterprises must address changing workforce dynamics to tackle ongoing labor shortages, the rise of gig economy workers, and empower existing employees. Customers increasingly seek contactless experiences, while businesses need to automate processes, gain new intelligence and increase efficiencies to meet these new needs.

Traditional data capture tools, such as those enabled with general purpose scanners, have been unable to meet such requirements. Whether to digitally enable the mobile workforce or to enhance supply chain visibility, omnichannel fulfillment, store operations efficiency or asset tracking and maintenance, Scandit Smart Data Capture enables enterprises to address these new challenges with unmatched speed, accuracy and intelligence.

Flavio Porciani, Managing Director at Warburg Pincus, said, ‘’Scandit’s smart data capture technology is transforming the way businesses operate and interact with their customers in an increasingly digital world and is strongly aligned with some of the biggest secular trends of our time, including enablement of the digital workforce and supply chain visibility. Already used by leading enterprises across multiple industries, by customers and end users all over the world, we see a huge opportunity for Scandit to cement its position as the global leader in smart data capture. We are excited to have the opportunity to partner with the team at Scandit on the next phase of their ambitious growth strategy.’’

Samuel Mueller, CEO at Scandit, said, “By following our original vision of using the camera on smart devices to interact with physical items, we are transforming the daily lives of customers, employees and businesses to enable enhanced, personalized experiences and achieve their digital transformation ambitions. The new funding will allow us to help more businesses globally and to better empower an evolving mobile workforce, meet new customer expectations and deliver increasingly automated operations. We are thrilled to have Warburg Pincus as our partner on the next phase of our growth journey. They bring a deep understanding of our business and software growth investing and a long track record of backing winning businesses.”

As an example of its innovation, last month Scandit launched ShelfView, a smart data capture and analytics solution for retail shelf management. Leveraging augmented reality, object recognition, optical character recognition and other innovative computer vision technology, ShelfView captures SKU-level product data via both mobile devices and autonomous robots to enable constant shelf visibility and empower more intelligent and efficient store operations.

 

Hammerteam Numbers 2021

Beekeeper acquires Lua

Beekeeper's acquisition of Lua

Beekeeper Acquires Lua to Tackle Trillion-Dollar Opportunity in the Frontline Workforce Productivity and Collaboration Space

I’m thrilled to announce one of the most exciting developments in Beekeeper history. This new venture will cement our platform as the leading mobile workforce productivity and collaboration platform for frontline workers, and further our mission of helping companies around the world achieve operational excellence.

Beekeeper has officially acquired Lua! The acquisition of this prime operational workflow platform reinforces our commitment to providing a full-stack mobile platform that enables frontline teams to operate more efficiently, effectively and safely.

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RAW Labs raises USD 5.5 million to help enterprises unlock the value of their data

Lausanne-based RAW Labs completed a USD 5.5 million pre-A funding round with new and existing investors. The funds will support the surge in demand for RAW Lab’s revolutionary data management solution. The company, which was supported by Venture Kick and was a TOP 100 Swiss Startup, also announced Lars Farnstrom as its new CEO.

The financing round was led by a group of investors specializing in investments of high-growth technology companies and investiere.ch. The funding will enable RAW Labs to accelerate the acquisition of large enterprise clients and continue investing in the expansion of the capabilities of its core NoDB data platform. Claude Honegger (former global CIO of Credit Suisse) and Pyrros Koussios (former private equity investor and senior executive at international technology companies) are joining the board of directors.

“We are excited that Lars has accepted the CEO role. His long experience in enterprise software from companies like Siebel Systems and C3.ai is a tremendous asset and will enable us to take RAW Labs to the next level,” said Ariel Luedi, one of the founding investors of RAW Labs and former CEO of SAP Hybris. Professor Anastasia Ailamaki, co-founder of RAW Labs, will continue as Chief Scientific Officer with the mission to strengthen the company’s research into groundbreaking data management technologies.

RAW Labs’ NoDB is a platform for data engineers, data scientists, and data analysts to seamlessly access, query, clean, and enhance heterogeneous data sources in near real time and transform them into high-value data products for consumption by analytical tools, ML-models, and enterprise applications.
What makes RAW NoDB unique is its revolutionary query engine, which, unlike any other solution in the market, uses category theory. This gives RAW the unique capability to query large and complex data sources at high performance without the need for any costly and time-consuming ETL/ELT preprocessing or integration with data sources.

“It’s a privilege to have a group of sophisticated investors who have proven experience in helping technology companies scale,” said Lars Farnstrom, CEO of RAW Labs. “Data drives digital transformation. We believe that by eliminating the artificial barrier between operational and analytical data and by enabling this in record time and without any expensive integrations, RAW Labs can help companies accelerate their digital transformation. Just connect your data sources and start asking questions that will help you unlock new insights on how to reduce costs or increase sales,” he continued.

CREAL Raised CHF 6.5M in A+ Round to Bring Light-Field to AR Glasses

Lausanne-based startup CREAL closed a series A+ financing round raising CHF 6.5 million bringing its total funding to CHF 13 million. This round was led by Swisscom Ventures and followed by the current investors including Investiere, DAA Capital Partners, and Ariel Luedi. 

This new funding will extend CREAL’s capabilities to bring its light-field display technology from the current hardware-development-kit stage to the complete technology package for the next-generation Augmented Reality (AR) glasses.

Today’s AR hardware has a major flaw. It typically uses two flat-screen images to create stereoscopic illusion of three-dimensional imagery while ignoring the natural need of our eyes to focus on the correct distance. This conflict is one of the causes of an unpleasant and unhealthy eye-strain, and visual conflicts in AR.

CREAL develops light-field display technology to solve this problem. CREAL’s light-field display projects genuinely three-dimensional hologram-like imagery that is entirely natural for human vision. Each eye can change focus between virtual objects in the image, just like it would do it in the real world. The technology will greatly improve user experience and attractiveness of the next generation of AR devices.

Today, CREAL’s high profile team counts 18 people combining engineering, research, and entrepreneurial experiences from Intel, Magic Leap, CERN, EPFL, and multiple startups. Founded in late 2017, the young startup raised CHF 14.2 million to date: CHF 0.85 M Seed round in 2018, 4.3 M A round, 2.5 M EIC grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme in 2019 under the grant agreement No 945983, and the CHF 6.5 M A+ round announced today.

“Swisscom Ventures is proud to back the exciting R&D program of CREAL, which has the potential to deliver a full solution for nextGen light-field displays and will benefit from the launch of the large-scale nextGen AR market,” says Lajla Aganovic, Swisscom Venture’s manager responsible for the investment.

“This funding allows us to make the last technology development step towards consumer grade display for AR glasses that are destined to become our everyday tool in everything from cooking to neurosurgery,” says Tomas Sluka, the co-founder and CEO of CREAL.

 

Beekeeper has announced an additional $10M investment to its series B financing round led by Energize Ventures

Zurich-based Beekeeper has offices in Poland, Germany and the United States, and touts itself as being the “first communication and operations platform designed specifically for frontline workers.” Those are people in industries who must physically show up to their jobs and don’t often have a dedicated desk. The platform is a single point of contact for a company’s apps, tools and integrations.

Beekeeper’s mission is to transform the way 2 billion frontline employees work with a mobile-first communication platform that reaches every shift, location, and language through real-time one-on-one and group messaging. Dedicated streams deliver important operational communications to your entire workforce or specific subgroups. Managers keep staff productive and turnover low by automating workflows and messaging to their teams, while leveraging an analytics dashboard to measure engagement. Quick to implement and even easier to use, Beekeeper integrates with the existing operational systems you rely on and makes them accessible to everyone in one central access point.

The company has announced a $10 million Series B extension led by Energize Ventures, joining as new investor. This fresh capital injection sums up to the $45 million financing round closed in September 2019.