Growth Capital Ventures (GCV) is a UK-based investment firm comprising of two business units: GCV Invest and GCV Labs.  GCV Invest is a Private Investor Network that provides members with access to compelling tax-efficient investment opportunities and property transactions, enabling our network of experienced investors to build a diversified investment portfolio and access high-growth opportunities. GCV Labs is a Venture Builder that creates, launches and scales innovative, technology-enabled startup companies. Providing full-stack software development, back-office support and business strategy guidance, our specialist team supports the full growth journey of transformational businesses, from idea-stage to exit. Since being founded, GCV has developed a carefully-curated portfolio of 15 startup companies spanning multiple sectors, including fintech, banking and media tech. The likes of Intelligence Fusion, a threat intelligence Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company, achieved a successful return for investors in 2022 after being acquired by a US-based risk services platform. With a network of over 700 investors, having co-invested over £100m and, as a result, created more than 600 jobs across our portfolio companies, GCV is focused on generating superior investment returns for our investor network whilst creating a positive social, environmental and economic impact.

Growth Capital Ventures

Maven Capital Partners is an independent alternative asset manager, with over £415m of assets under management. Maven was formed in 2009 after a buyout of the Aberdeen Asset Management private equity business, and operates from a nationwide network of regional offices.  They provide flexible equity and loan finance packages to UK SMEs, on behalf of a range of client funds, as well as funding for well-researched property development projects. They also offer attractive investment opportunities for investors including tax-efficient investment into VCTs, and direct co-investment in private equity and property transactions. Maven is one of the UK’s most active private equity managers in the lower mid-market, investing for a range of client funds including six Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) and a number of regionally focused funds delivering equity and debt finance. They offer a range of flexible funding solutions for entrepreneurial SMEs at any stage of the business growth cycle, with the ability to commit as little as £100,000 of development capital or as much as £15 million to support an MBO.

Maven Capital Partners

Hive

Hive is an employee engagement and employee feedback software. Originally invented to challenge traditional employee surveying, our flexible employee feedback platform has provided an agile and intuitive alternative for savvy HR and business professionals. Our platform technology continues to be enhanced with new features to meet the growing needs of modern, changing organizations. And, with the development of Hive People Science, we are empowering organizations to drive real cultural and organizational change by understanding and listening to their employees.

Hive is a UK-based company offering occupational psychology support to its clients. Hive’s employee voice solution enables smart decision-making, engagement of employees, and changes. The platform helps to extract and analyze information and provide tailored insights to ensure employers create good working environments.

Distributed workforces require new solutions for office operations, HR, payment, and more.

Remote Work Infrastructure

Centrica-owned Hive strikes deal with EV charging app Zapmap

Hive is a UK-based company offering occupational psychology support to its clients. Hive’s employee voice solution enables smart decision-making, engagement of employees, and changes. The platform helps to extract and analyze information and provide tailored insights to ensure employers create good working environments.Hive HR's suite includes tools for conducting surveys, recognizing employee contributions, and facilitating open communication through features like Hive Messenger, Hive Fives, and People Science. Its solutions are designed to align organizational goals with employee welfare, promoting a high-performance workplace culture.The company serves clients across diverse industries from housing associations, education, healthcare, not-for-profit, emergency services, construction and engineering, retail and ecommerce, and public sector industries. Key customers and partnershipsAs of May 2024, Hive’s key customers included Travelodge, Tarmac, Studio, Sheffield Hallam University, Natures Way Foods, Royal Academy of Engineering, Broadacres, Insure the Box, and Atlas Cloud.Further, the company maintains HRIS partnerships with incumbents such as Workday, Google Workspace, and SAP SuccessFactors. Funding and financialsIn June 2021, Hive raised GBP 500,000 led by North East Development Capital Fund to support the expansion of the company’s digital presence and online services.

ActivTrak is a cloud-based productivity monitoring software provider. The platform offers data and analytics which can be used to detect workplace productivity gaps. The platform collects data from employee activity logs and computer screenshots, although it does not log keystrokes or record video of a user’s screen. ActivTrak also facilitates a range of tasks for admins such as blocking websites, flagging suspicious activities, IP address connections, and monitoring web, and app traffic.Other features offered include productivity reports and coaching, headcount and workload management and personal insights. In November 2023, the company added capabilities to measure the usage of AI tools, automatically detecting and classifying the use of such tools and websites to help organizations manage and improve AI adoption across the workforce.Activtrak generates revenue via monthly subscriptions (USD 10 and USD 17) per user, and custom pricing for larger enterprises.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, over 9,500 enterprises used ActivTrak’s platform, notably including Allstate, asembia and Nobu. ActivTrak closed 2023 with a 40% growth in its customer base (adding ~2,200 customers).Funding and financialsIn November 2020, ActivTrak raised USD 50 million in a Series B round led by Sapphire Ventures. Sapphire Ventures CEO and managing director joined ActivTrak’s board as part of the deal. The new proceeds were earmarked for scaling global sales and marketing campaigns, expansion of its platform using AI driven analytics, and improving integration with its technology partners.

ActivTrak

inFeedo is a people predictive analytics company based in India. The Y Combinator-backed startup founded in 2013 is currently focused on “Amber” (launched in 2016), an AI-enabled bot that helps manage employee engagement, predict attrition, and get a pulse on company culture in real time. The company also offers AI-driven exit surveys and analytics to improve retention.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, over 700,000 users across 250 organizations utilized inFeedo’s platform. Notable clients included GE Healthcare, Puma, Tata Group, and Lenovo.Funding and financialsIn its latest funding round (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9099">March 2022</a>) inFeedo raised USD 12 million in Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures, reportedly tripling its valuation from less than 18 months ago. The fresh funds will be used for its second employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buyback for all employees and its go-to-market activities in North America. Further, the company claims it has achieved annual revenue of USD 1.6 million as of November 2020.

inFeedo

Donut provides solutions to keep employees engaged with casual conversations. Its first product, Intros, makes connections between teammates via Slack to emulate quick meetups and in-person introductions at work, which are now virtual.Donut’s new product, Watercooler, launched in October 2020. It attempts to reinvent the micro-interactions between employees at the office watercooler online. The product will integrate with Slack, where a newly-designated channel for Watercooler will be created. The product will post questions automatically within the customers’ desired frequency and pre-selected topics.The company uses a freemium subscription model with paid plans starting at approximately USD 2 per user per month.Key customers and partnershipsThe company claims it has supported four million connections (one million since the Covid-19 pandemic) across its 12,000 customers, including companies such as Okta, Zapier, Slack, The New York Times, and Invision.Funding and financialsDonut announced a USD 12 million funding round led by Accel, along with its new product, Watercooler. The USD 12 million raised was accumulated over multiple rounds before the Covid-19 pandemic, with proceeds earmarked for product development.

Donut

Matter is an employee feedback platform founded by Brett Hellman. Hellman was the founder of messaging app “Hall”, which was founded in 2011 and later sold to Atlassian for USD 20 million in 2015.Matter uses 360-degree feedback to evaluate skills in employees which are linked to career success. The platform links skills such as influence, inclusiveness, empathy, resourcefulness, and multitasking to evaluations. Matter is currently available in beta.

Matter

Mesh is a Y Combinator-backed company that allows employees to set goals, track tasks, share feedback, and engage in one-on-ones. The company also offers an AI coach (Mesh Maven) to help employees stay in line with their key objectives, improve the quality of feedback provided and summarize 1:1s. Mesh also offers nudges and surveys to improve employee engagement alongside relevant analytics.The company generates revenue via monthly subscriptions per user, priced at USD 4 (Base) and USD 7 (Premium).&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, the company served over 100+ enterprises, including NTT Data, Grant Thornton and Groww. The platform also offers integrations with third-party software such as Gmail, Microsoft Teams and Slack, among others.Funding and financialsIn its most recent funding round (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9768">April 2022</a>) Mesh raised USD 11 million in Series A funding led by RTP Global. The fresh funds were earmarked to expand its global footprint across the US and APAC regions. In line with this, the company planned to expand its headcount across the engineering and sales departments.

Mesh

Companies offering tools to infer employee morale (through surveys and quick assessments) and productivity, including functions for goal setting, review, and feedback.

Companies that offer the entire spectrum of HR tools including payroll processing benefits, onboarding, compliance, analytics, scheduling etc

Companies providing either standalone or combined payroll and benefits services to businesses.

EoR - Companies that assist businesses in hiring distributed teams globally in compliance with foreign labor laws. EoRs become the legal employer of offshore employees. Solutions include payroll, benefits, and taxes.

PEO - Companies that offer similar services to EoRs but establish a co-employment arrangement with businesses and do not become the legal employer.

Companies offering tools such as chatbots, surveys, games, and other activities to infer, assess and improve employee morale and sentiment.

Companies that provide a centralized space for employees to access internal and external resources, enterprise applications, and enable workers to communicate across departments, and stay up to date on organizational announcements.

Solutions in this industry hub are predominantly offered under a B2B SaaS model

Employee and performance management solutions use AI/Ml to infer engagement insights and sentiment analysis

Offers tools for companies to hire contractors globally, and conduct employee and performance management

Hive

About EDGE

Contact Us

Resources

Area of Focus

Technology Research Made Effortless