Berlin- and Munich- based Seatti.co has raised €500K in pre-seed funding from Amsterdam venture capital firm Peak (formerly Peak Capital), Berlin-based Hasso Plattner Institute Seed Fund and super angel Dr. Ralph Mueller.
The pandemic has substantially changed the way we work, and the question is no longer whether working from home will prevail – but rather to what extent. A mix of remote work and office presence has become the ‘new normal’, with many teams still believing that teamwork benefits from a physical meet up every now and then. However this new working format poses extensive challenges for companies, in areas such as how to manage the hybrid office, or help teams stay in touch.
Seatti.co is on a mission to solve this problem. Founded in 2020, the startup has developed software that allows companies to manage their hybrid office and connect their flexible workforce. In a pre-seed funding round, the startup now raised €500K from Peak (formerly Peak Capital), Berlin’s HPI Seed Fund and super angel Dr. Ralph Mueller. The investment will be used to build out new product features, accelerate customer growth and expand the sales and engineering teams.
“Even before the COVID crisis, in my time as a project manager at Tesla, I came in contact with New Work concepts, such as desk sharing and hybrid remote work. It was always a challenge to find a flex desk and I never knew which colleagues would be in the office – that’s when the idea for Seatti came up. The last year and a half have pushed the shift to hybrid models at a previously unimaginable pace – 92% of companies will now transition to a hybrid workforce. Seatti supports companies in this transition. We make sure that every employee always knows where there is a desk available, which colleagues are working nearby and when they can meet up in person. At the same time, companies can employ this work location data to develop their ideal workplace strategy and reduce office costs.” said Christopher Bieri, Co-founder & CEO Seatti.
When Peak met the founders of Seatti for the first time in October 2020, the business model was slightly different. Seatti started off as a transactional marketplace to help workers find remote work stations in unused space e.g. in vacant hotel rooms. However, soon the team realized that the biggest challenge for new, flexible work models didn’t lay in the discovery of new workspaces, but in the management of the old. Large companies wanted to change the status-quo, but didn’t have the technological means to do so. Within 6 months after launching their SaaS product in February 2021, more than 10,000 employees are now using Seatti on a weekly basis. The software helps reduce office space while fostering personal collaboration in hybrid remote teams.
“We’ve been following the team closely for the last 9 months, and saw how nimble they were in tweaking both product and business model. Our conviction grew when we saw their ability to close large accounts with enterprise clients such as Osram, BDO and Sartorius, which usually have very long sales cycles. We don’t believe offices are a thing of the past. People will still want to meet and collaborate in person, it will just no longer be the default option. Software will be necessary to manage the hybrid workforce and get insights on office capacities. This way companies can optimise office space while offering flex-desks to connect their workforce. We believe Seatti will cater to those needs.” said Johan van Mil, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Peak.
