The decentralized reality of office work after the COVID-19 pandemic continues to drive many startup activities. To witness it: OfficeRnD, which makes workspace management software increasingly designed to help businesses deliver a ‘hybrid office’ model, which means they offer flexible workspaces for staff who want to switch some of his time working in a shared physical location, not just logging in and working remotely from your home.
The startup just closed a $ 10 million Series A to continue developing its workplace management SaaS for office owners and managers – which offers features like resource scheduling (meeting room reservation , etc.), the commitment of employee members / co-working spaces and financial management tools. via web and mobile applications.
Series A funding is led by Runa Capital with participation from Flashpoint Venture Capital and LAUNCHub Ventures.
The funding will be used to boost the marketing of OfficeRnD with the aim of increasing its market share, in particular by developing its partnerships.
At this point, OfficeRnD has over 1,000 clients using his tools to manage over 2,000 flexible spaces and deliver what he describes as a “work from anywhere” experience that currently reaches “tens of thousands”. tenants and more than 300,000 employees.
He says his tools for coworking spaces “fully automate the tenant / customer lifecycle” – from preparing a contract and having it electronically signed to having it automatically billed, automatically prompting employees to the space app. and the online portal, allowing them to reserve spaces and interact with other spaces, providing them with credits to use to reserve meeting spaces, as well as giving them Office access via the access management system, WiFi, document printing, etc.
Currently, OfficeRnD’s customers are in over 90 countries, but its best market is the United States, which accounts for 45% of its customers, followed by around 15% in the United Kingdom; 15% in the EU; 15% in APAC and 10% elsewhere.
The London-based startup was actually founded in 2015, launching the first version of its product in 2016 – so years before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and triggered a temporary closure of physical offices everywhere, followed by a slow and (still) partial reopening.
So, while its original goal was to help coworking spaces and commercial real estate better manage the use of their shared workplaces, since the pandemic hit, the startup says it has seen a strong increased demand from companies looking for tools to help them move to a more flexible and hybrid Office routine.
Therefore, although his typical clients remain coworking spaces and “flexible spaces” (he says he has around 800), followed by owners (~ 100) – he also now has around 50 midsize businesses. (with between 100 and 1000 employees). using its tools to reconfigure their approach to office work.
A recently launched product – called “OfficeRnD Hybrid” – is aimed at these corporate customers to help them move from the traditional “all hands 9-5” routine to a flexible, hybrid desktop model.
The new funding will be oriented towards a “heavy” investment in this hybrid work management offer, he says.
“We see a huge pull in this, as most companies now want to let their teams work in a hybrid fashion, which essentially means flexible work or collaborative work,” says OfficeRnD, adding, “We see a great opportunity to transfer our knowledge of co. -from workspaces to corporate clients and help them use their workspaces in the best possible way by giving their employees full flexibility to work the way they want.
“What has happened throughout COVID-19 is that flexible working has become a ‘bright’ future of work,” the startup also told TechCrunch, saying the change opened up two new markets for its product: first, the landlords who she said were looking to “provide flexibility and a better experience for their tenants”; and second, the aforementioned companies wishing to be able to offer what they call “flexibility and a better work experience” to their own staff.
“Essentially, we are now bringing products to anyone who wants to be able to manage a flexible space and provide a great workspace experience for people, whether they are a coworking space, an owner or an owner. ‘a business,’ he adds.
“Technology has been on a steady path to enabling flexible working for over a decade and COVID-19 has only served to speed up the process,” says Miroslav Miroslavov, co-founder and CEO, in a report. “Our platform enables flexible workspace owners, operators, and businesses to engage people and manage their workplaces on the principle of flexibility first. “
“OfficeRnD has become extremely relevant to the industry which is largely shifting to a hybrid working model after testing it during the pandemic, ”adds Dmitry Chikhachev, general partner at Runa Capital, in another supporting statement. “Many companies that we know have developed while keeping the same lease on their Office and now realize that they want to use it differently and offer more opportunities to their employees ”.
Competitively, OfficeRnD appoints people as Nexude, Essensys and Yardi as its main competitors in the coworking space market, as well as Envoy, Robin and Condeco in the corporate space market.
“What sets us apart from everyone else in terms of the feature set and customer benefits is the ease of use and depth of our workspace applications (employee / member) and the level of our integrations and automations, ”he says. “Other than that, it’s the quality of customer service that we strive to provide. We are a customer obsessed team and we always try to go above and beyond.
If you’re curious about the name, the “RnD” bit doesn’t mean research and development – but rather “bedrooms and offices” – so OfficeRnD is looking for an AirBnB-style naming vibe.
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