The investment serves to set up remote offices and to facilitate employee onboarding and offboarding at fast-growing organisations across Europe.
Amsterdam, 18 January 2022 – Dutch start-up Workwize receives €1.5 million investment, spearheaded by early-stage investor Peak. Workwize specialises in setting up remote offices and streamlining the onboarding and offboarding processes for employees of fast-growing organisations, such as its current clients Netflix, Mollie and Rocket Delivery. Workwize will use the investment to expand its services in the Netherlands as well as internationally, aiming to further shape new hybrid working models.
Workwize was founded in late 2020 and provides fast-growing organisations with a platform for employees with individual budgets to order products and services for their home offices, such as ergonomical desks and desk chairs as well as coffee and IT products. The recently introduced work-from-home policies have certainly promoted Workwize’s exponential growth over a short period of time, but the start-up’s four founders believe the measures aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 are a catalyst for rather than the cause of ‘the new way of working’.
Workwize CEO Michiel Meyer says: ‘We are convinced happy employees are an employer’s best asset. Employees are more efficient when working in a hybrid system. Our preliminary research indicated that many employees prefer hybrid working models, but many companies are not yet able to facilitate that need. By structuring these employee benefits in the best possible way, we help HR departments and facility managers to recruit and retain talented staff.’
€1.5 million in growth capital
The €1.5 million investment is largely funded by early-stage investor Peak. Other investors are Graduate Entrepreneur Fund (Graduate) and several private parties. Among the latter are young entrepreneurs Marnix Broer (StuDocu) as well as Max Klijnstra and Milan Daniels (founders of Otrium, also a client of Workwize).
Thijs Dijkman, Investment Manager at Peak, says: ‘Workwize is tapping into the current international hybrid working trend. Not only does the company offer a marketplace, it also provides smart software to facilitate hybrid working. The combined platform has the potential to capture the full value chain of hybrid working. The Workwize team has clearly outlined their ideas about the future of working and is very driven to achieve its goals. Those elements combined are what convinced us to invest in the company.’
In May 2021, Workwize raised €600,000 from several investors, among which current investor Graduate. The seed capital was used to further develop the organisation and its platform, which is used by Kantoorartikelen.nl, Tech Data and Schäfer Shop. Furthermore, HR, payroll and budget management software integration has been realised. At present, the start-up is handling remote and customised employee onboarding and offboarding processes, including customised office supplies, for clients such as Netflix, Mollie and Rocket Delivery.
European expansion
Workwize will use the growth capital to expand its services by adding new suppliers and more options, but it will also grow its operations abroad. ‘The majority of our clients operate internationally. We fully support these developments, as in doing so, organisations gain access to a diverse and international pool of talent. The scalability of our platform allows us to offer support in dozens of European countries,’ says Meyer. ‘However, the current trend calls for a multilingual and personalised approach. We have recently hired a country manager to oversee our activities in France. For our corporate headquarters, we are seeking to attract new talent for our Tech, Commerce and Operations teams to help accelerate growth.’