Office Services Provider Managed by Q Acquires French Task Platform Hivy
By Rey Mashayekhi September 26, 2017 10:35 am
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Office management startup Managed by Q has continued its expansion by acquiring Hivy, a Paris-based tech platform that specializes in the same realm of workplace logistics.
The deal, which Managed by Q announced today, will see the Soho-based company acquire Hivy’s task management platform for an undisclosed amount, and integrate the French company’s executive team and staff into its own product and engineering team in New York.
In addition to providing its own client base with access to Hivy’s technology, Managed by Q hopes the acquisition will give it exposure to the Paris firm’s “global customer base,” Managed by Q co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Dan Teran told Commercial Observer. (Teran declined to comment on the financial terms of the acquisition).
“We’ll definitely be onboarding new clients, but what’s even more exciting is scaling Q to new geographies,” Teran said. Pauline Tordeur, Hivy’s co-founder and CEO, will “effectively run [Hivy] as she was in the past,” Teran added, albeit within the “very integrated” culture at Managed by Q’s One Soho Square offices. (The two-building Stellar Management property is at Spring Street and Avenue of the Americas.)
The transaction is the latest testament to Managed by Q’s rapid growth in the nearly four years since its founding. The company connects its client base of thousands of offices to services ranging from IT and security to cleaning, maintenance and administrative services, and has raised a total of $72.5 million from investors—including $30 million in its most recent funding round last December. Teran said the company has doubled the size of its corporate team in the past year alone.
Hivy’s status as a “help desk” for employees, allowing them to send requests for tasks like snack replenishment and IT support, will further enhance Managed by Q’s mission of “mak[ing] it easier to run an office,” Teran said. He noted Hivy’s ability to “manage a diversity of requests” and the platform’s “speed of execution” as particular benefits of the company’s software.
In a press release announcing the deal, Hivy’s Tordeur said Managed by Q is “the perfect partner” for meeting the company’s vision of “optimiz[ing] the daily operations of office managers.”
“The breadth and quality of service providers on [Managed by Q’s] marketplace, as well as their expertise in workplace management across offices of all sizes and sectors, will ensure offices receive high-quality service after requests are made through Hivy,” Tordeur said.
Among Managed by Q and Hivy’s clients is SeatGeek, the online ticketing marketplace. Jack Groetzinger, SeatGeek’s founder and CEO, said in the press release that both products “have become integral to our workplace operations and employee experience.”
“This kind of technology ensures that our team’s needs are met in real-time and that only outstanding service providers are fulfilling those needs, saving us time and money.” Groetzinger said in a statement.
The Hivy acquisition is unlikely to be Managed by Q’s last, as the company said in the release that it “will continue to invest in technology that connects commercial spaces to services in a more efficient manner.”
