Comcast Leads $10.6 Million Round in Hive

NEW YORK — Hive, which operates a business productivity platform, has raised a $10.6 million Series A round, bringing total funding to $16.7 million. Comcast Ventures led the round with participation from existing seed investors Tribeca Venture Partners, Vocap Investment Partners, and Rembrandt Venture Partners.

Hive says the company quintupled revenue in the past year, attracting companies like Starbucks, Google, WeWork, Uber and the United States Government as customers.

“Why do we shackle talented teams with 40-year-old technology? It’s easier for me to see what my friends ate for brunch than to see what my colleague is working on,” said John Furneaux, CEO and cofounder of Hive. “Hive delivers what everyone has been requesting for decades – a simple platform to use each day to get things done as a team. Ask yourself how you many times a week you attend a meeting, and want everyone present to know their next steps. How about knowing whether they’ve been done? This stuff is simple for Hive teams. That’s the magic of Hive. It’s not just a tool for the Silicon Valley elite – it’s a helping hand for everyone.”

“Starbucks couldn’t roll new stores out so quickly without Hive. We have eliminated miscommunication, saved hours of unnecessary meetings, and achieved full transparency across all our projects,” says Brian Collins, Interior Concepts Design Manager at Starbucks who has been a Hive customer since 2017.

Hive has already built a formidable platform, including chat, tasks, email, notes and the analytics for senior managers to keep processes improving. Next up: automation of all of those:

• Automated email management, automatically identifying next steps from emails and assigning tasks to the appropriate team members
• Ability to turn recurring meetings into real-time notes, automatically recapping previous meetings and assigning next steps
• Auto-suggesting project plans from the large and growing library of successful projects, allowing teams to choose the smartest approach to problems already encountered by others.

“More companies from small businesses to large enterprises are poised to embrace process management tools and automation at scale,” said Andrew Cleland, Managing Director at Comcast Ventures. “Hive has produced one of the best-rated products on the market, and we’re thrilled to partner with the management team to accelerate the company’s growth.”