Locatee, the leading workplace analytics solution, has raised 8.4m USD (7.7m CHF) in a Series B growth-financing round led by the European growth equity fund SmartFin. The funding will underwrite the further innovation of Locatee’s platform that leverages existing IT infrastructure for office occupancy data utilization and management support of workspace ecosystems centered on employee experience, safety, and productivity.
“The last year has been quite the ride for Locatee – even with the market being in a pinch due to the pandemic, we could still see how our solution is highly valued and sought after”, said Thomas Kessler, co-founder and CEO of Locatee. “Together with the board, employees, and stakeholders, we looked at the market signs, and saw the opportunity to double down on growth and value creation, selecting SmartFin to lead this push with us”.
SmartFin, a firm with c. 380m EUR assets under management, led the 8.4m USD funding round that included new investors such as Zürcher Kantonalbank, Swiss Immo Lab, and Verve Ventures, as well as previous investors FYRFLY Venture Partners and Tomahawk VC. The new funding adds momentum to Locatee’s Series A round that raised 4m USD in 2020.
“SmartFin’s strategy is to work with European market-leading technology companies to help them build and grow”, said Jürgen Ingels, SmartFin Founding Partner. “Locatee has proven to be brilliant in establishing a strong, leading position in a new, exciting and fast-growing market and we believe this is a key time to build from this leading position and create the new standard for workplace data”.
High growth market
Locatee is leading the occupancy analytics market that is estimated to grow to more than 5bn USD by 2025. This growth is underpinned by the transformation of the role of the office, which accelerated with the Covid-19 pandemic. The onus is on businesses to experiment and validate their office spaces and thus use real-time utilization data. Locatee helps corporate companies resolve the tension between creating the right work experience and making the correct investment in their workspaces.
People at the center of the work experience
Locatee has already upended the workplace analytics market by providing value for Forbes Global 2000 companies, automating once manual systems counting exhaustive badge data for measuring building occupancy. Companies are pressed to enable new ways of work, reduce their footprint, and improve employee health, wellbeing, productivity and experience. Locatee’s capacities, generate data that brings together the built environment and the people that occupy it.
“The vision for Locatee’s solution which convinced us before continues to receive validation by both the market and the developments in the corporate world,” said Philipp Stauffer, co-founder and managing director at FYRFLY Venture Partners – a repeat Locatee investor. “We have built capabilities that have created a new category and established us as a market leader; we now look at realizing the full potential of the market, as it wakes up to this new world of work.”
