French startup Flitdesk has announced closing a €1 million seed funding round to launch its flexible workspace management platform out of beta. The round was led by prominent angel investors like French businessman Xavier Niel, through his fund Kima Ventures.
Flexible workspaces have become the new normal over the past ten years with the growth of remote work, coworking, and hot desking. Companies are trying to design offices adapted to the needs of a flexible workforce. But flexible workspaces are much harder to manage than conventional offices, and unfortunately the toolkit that’s available to workplace managers has not evolved much (think: spreadsheets, calendars, post-its) for the last 20 years. Managers need the right tools to boost employee productivity and engagement. That’s where Flitdesk comes in.
Flitdesk was founded in 2017 to provide an all-in-one solution to workplace managers in their quest for more flexible workspaces. As the brainchild of Julian Dufoulon and Youenn Laumelais, the two had realized that smart buildings should be designed around the needs of users, not the the building infrastructure itself. A typical design brief for a modern workplace includes taking into consideration highly mobile and nomadic work habits, shared group settings, diverse task-based spaces, and variable occupancy periods (sometimes very high).
Flitdesk allows office and coworking managers to run the whole office from one simple admin dashboard. They can manage desks and meeting rooms, booking rules and policies (confirmation, cancellation, payment, etc.), as well all employee and member requests in one help desk, and provide a more attractive experience for visitors. Whatsmore, Flitdesk already offers integrations with workplace technologies such as access control, print management and more.
And there is certainly demand for this kind of workplace management. A 2019 study from Jones Lang Lassalle, found that 64% of respondents confirmed they were looking for solutions to help them manage workplace flexibility, while 14% only had already found or adopted a solution.
“Designers come up with creative solutions to meet the flexibility challenge faced by occupants, whether it’s a company or a coworking. The solutions brought to the table by technology companies can’t be limited to mounting tablets in front of meeting rooms and geo-locating people in the office. We wanted to come up with better, lighter, cheaper, more effective and above all more useful solutions for employees and workplace managers.” Julian Dufoulon, Flitdesk Co-Founder and CEO.
The startup is already working with high-end coworking brands in Paris, such as The Bureau, and Newtown Square (Groupe La Française), and for this round of funding convinced business angels (including French Entrepreneur Xavier Niel via his fund Kima Ventures) to support its ambitious plan to make workplaces simpler and more productive.
“We are very proud to announce our first funding round. It confirms the two most important things at Flitdesk’s current development stage: we were able to create a product that answers a pressing need shared by a lot of companies around the world, and we have delivered a powerful solution in very little time. We’re 100% ready for the next challenge and excited to welcome smart investors on board”, said CEO Julian Dufoulon.
With the support of their new investors the team intends to support current growth, boost R&D, and reach at least 50 clients by the end of 2020.
