Firstbase Brings in $15M in Funding to Help Companies Transition, Manage Remote Work
Firstbase, a tech startup with offices in New York and Scotland, got its start in 2019 in fintech but that changed when COVID-19 hit last year. As office staffers around the world began to telecommute, the company found a new niche when it pivoted its business model to help organizations set up hardware and infrastructure for remote work.
Now, the company has a fresh round of cash to boost its plans. Venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz is leading a $13 million Series A funding round alongside B Capital Group and Alpaca VC. To date, Firstbase has raised a total of $15 million.
“There are nearly 255 million desk jobs globally and an estimated 90% of these workers have expressed a desire to work remotely at least part-time going forward,” said Chris Herd, Firstbase co-founder and CEO, in a recent post on the company blog. “Hybrid and flexible WFH policies will be the new norm, providing an HR benefit for employees and improving businesses’ operating costs. Estimates predict that if U.S. workers split their time 50/50 between the office and home, organizations could save nearly $1 trillion on IT management costs and offset real estate costs by 50-90%, depending on the frequency workers are expected to attend in person.”
David Ulevitch, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who will be joining the company's board, said there was a big opportunity to build an organization to provide remote infrastructure before the pandemic, and that has swelled in the course of the last year as more organizations switched to a distributed model of work. “There is absolutely a gigantic company to be built here,” Ulevitch said in a statement.
Learning Opportunities
Firstbase started off working with a handful of customers last April. Now the company has a customer base of nearly two dozen using the platform. Most customers are in tech and typically range between 50 and 150 employees, according to Herd. Firstbase plans to use the new funding round to accelerate hiring in product development, marketing and sales and increase its integration with HR and collaboration software partners.
“Firstbase isn’t just about getting the right desk or laptop for the WFH employee, but they’ll ultimately power the entire experience of being a productive, happy, remote employee,” Ulevitch said.
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Stephanie is a freelance news writer and communications professional, holding a Bachelor’s degree from DePaul University. Her background includes over a decade of work experience across the spectrum of media relations, social media, marketing communications, customer communications, feature writing and newspaper/online editing, content entry, copywriting and copy editing.
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