We’re getting ready to make 2023 our biggest year yet! Our new product suite and $50M Series C funding round secures Beekeeper’s spot as the dominant Frontline Success solution provider.
From Frontline Disconnect to Frontline Success
Although frontline workers make up over 80% of the global workforce, these essential employees have largely been left behind when it comes to technology solutions that make their lives easier. As workplace culture for office teams evolves and improves, the day-to-day experience for many frontline workers has remained stuck in the past.
While the vast majority of people who work at a desk are now enjoying more flexibility, freedom, and software solutions to make their jobs easier, frontline workers are still relying on outdated, inefficient systems like old-school bulletin boards, chaotic WhatsApp messages, and top-down communication delivered from second-hand sources.
This failure to bring the frontline employee experience into the modern era with the rest of the workforce has quietly fueled the growing problem of frontline disconnect in the workplace for decades. This massive disconnect between what frontline workers want and need to excel in their jobs and what upper management and executives think is important has now hit a breaking point.
Long-standing frontline issues like high turnover, major burnout, and low employee engagement can all be traced back to one systemic issue — the great frontline disconnect. As massive frontline labor shortages continue to plague companies, organizations are now embracing radical change to improve the employee experience for their frontline teams.
With Beekeeper, companies can finally solve the age-old problem of frontline disconnect. Our software is the only solution on the market built for the needs of frontline teams. Now, organizations can empower frontline workers and connect them to the people, processes, and systems they need to do their best work.
“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. 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.”
Cris Grossmann, Beekeeper Co-Founder and CEO
From “Supporting Essential Workers” to a Commitment to Frontline Success
At the start of the pandemic, the topic of “essential workers” became the focus of national conversations. Companies quickly realized that the traditional communication channels they’d relied on for years were massively ineffective. Delivering real-time updates about COVID policies to their teams was impossible. So they sought out newer, better ways to connect with their frontline.
Many organizations reached out to us during this time seeking software that would allow them to digitize processes, communication, and frontline operations overall. They needed to revolutionize how they reached non-desk workers. And they needed to do it fast.
We fast-tracked roll-outs of Beekeeper to organizations all over the world, and once they saw “the Beekeeper Effect” on their teams first-hand, there was no going back.
Since 2020, we’ve seen massive growth and adoption with thousands of frontline business locations now using Beekeeper in more than 150 countries — accelerating investor excitement. From hospitality and retail to manufacturing and construction, we’re excited to continue helping our customers in key frontline industries thrive during the pre and post-pandemic eras.
One of our hospitality customers, Bob Napierala, VP of Human Resources at Resort World Las Vegas said,
“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 with 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 the 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.”
Forward-thinking companies like Resorts World Las Vegas that rely on frontline workers to make, sell, and transport their products and services are finally tackling the decades-old issue of frontline disconnect head-on — and we’re here to help them do it.
Meet Our New Frontline Success Product Suite
In addition to closing our Series C funding round (hooray! 🎉), our team at Beekeeper has been extra busy this year working on new product innovations to solve the great frontline disconnect.
We’ve built new features and added functionality to the platform. And now, we’re ready to roll out our new, comprehensive Frontline Success System to the global market.
What’s in the Frontline Success product suite? We’ll break it all down for you here.
1) Frontline Workspace
At the core of our Frontline Success System is the Frontline Workspace, which improves three main areas for our users:
- Employee Services: easy access to workers’ shifts, payslips, training, and onboarding information
- Comms & Collaboration: allows two-way communication, connecting frontline workers to their teams, colleagues, managers, and those in corporate headquarters
- Productivity: providing frontline workers with intuitive tools to do their work quicker and more efficiently
2) Employee Referrals
As frontline businesses struggle to fill open roles, our Employee Referrals solution helps companies fill positions faster, retain more employees, and lower recruitment costs. In just four steps, companies can inform, collect, track, and reward employees for their referrals. Our customers are already reporting massive wins, stating that 30% of those referred are hired and stay at their jobs twice as long.
For more info, check out the following resources:
- Watch our Employee Referral product video.
- Read our Wanzek Construction case study, showcasing how the team at Wanzek successfully generated 500+ employee referrals in three months.
3) Employee Onboarding
We know that the first 90 days on the job are crucial for an employee’s success. Our new Employee Onboarding program for frontline teams is a scalable solution to onboard new hires faster and at less cost.
The frontline-focused onboarding program engages new hires from the day they start their new job and optimizes the employee experience with a communication plan that reinforces critical touchpoints of the new hire journey. It provides the automation organizations need to deliver personalized training new hires want.
For more info on our custom frontline onboarding program, check out the following:
- Watch our Employee Onboarding product video.
- Read our Concord Hospital case study, showcasing how the customer used the solution to improve onboarding and communications.
4) Safety Management
Our mobile-first Safety Management Solution is designed for frontline teams and optimizes their safety culture in four critical ways:
- Training
- Accident prevention
- Accident reporting
- Safety metrics
To learn more, check out the following resources:
- Watch our Health and Safety product video.
- Read our Amsted Rail case study, showcasing how the customer greatly improved its health and safety guidelines with Beekeeper and got employees back to work quickly following the pandemic.
New Investors Join the Hive in a Series C Funding Round Furthering the Frontline Success Mission
Companies around the world are recognizing the urgent need to address the frontline disconnect in their organizations. As momentum behind the frontline success movement builds, investors have taken notice and joined us in our mission.
And in the midst of challenging market conditions, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve raised an additional $50 million in funding in our Series C!
This round brings our total funding to date to more than $100 million. As the critical importance of the frontline worker grows, so does the need for comprehensive frontline success technology.
Words From Our Investors
“More than 80% 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. 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.”
Juan Muldoon, Partner at Energize Ventures
Read more about why Energize Ventures continues to invest in Beekeeper here.
New investors like EGS Beteiligungen and Kreos Capital joined the Series C round alongside our existing investors and partners Energize, Thayer, SwissCanto, Keen Ventures, Alpana Ventures, Edenred Capital, and Verve Capital. Our team plans to use this new round of funding to grow, continue to invest in product development, and continue establishing ourselves and our solution as leaders in the frontline success category.
“Our investment in Beekeeper comes at a critical time for the frontline workforce. As more industries from manufacturing 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.”
– Sean Dunne, General Partner at Kreos Capital
We’re excited to partner with these organizations in the coming years to make frontline success a critical part of their organizational culture. We believe that it’s time to build frontline success into the daily operations of frontline-majority businesses, and we look forward to partnering with leading organizations to build a better, brighter future for frontline workers around the world.
“I’ve never been more excited about Beekeeper’s work and the future we are building for frontline success. The disconnect between employers and the frontline is too great to ignore, and the level of support we’ve received from investors, customers, and partners to revolutionize the employee experience for deskless workers underscores how critical our mission has become and highlights that the demand for frontline-focused technology is higher than it’s ever been.”
Cris Grossmann, Co-Founder, CEO, and head hive master at Beekeeper
Frontline Success is here to stay. And we’re proud to be at the forefront, leading the way in this exciting global revolution in the frontline employee experience.
Links: TechCrunch | TechEU | EU Startups | BusinessWire | Press Release
