Hive has announced today that it raised $10 million to deliver the world’s first productivity software platform built by users. The round was led by Rembrandt Venture Partners, with participation from Zoom Video Communications, Inc., and existing investors Tribeca Venture Partners and Angelpad. Hive is one of the first startups to receive investment from the recently launched Zoom Apps Fund, a $100 million global venture fund to stimulate growth of the Zoom Apps ecosystem.
The company will use the latest funding to build the world’s first democratic software platform, where all product decisions are made democratically by users. Hive maintains a public product roadmap where its users can request features they would like to see in the product. The order in which the features are delivered by Hive’s engineering team is decided by the number of votes each request receives. Two in three Hive users will get a feature they’ve requested built within their first year.
“Employees today want to be in control of their own work processes. They are increasingly looking for tools that will support the way they work instead of requiring them to change the way things are done. We’re very excited to be a part of Hive’s journey to becoming the first democratic software platform in history,” said Scott Irwin, Rembrandt Venture Partners.
One of Hive’s community-driven products, Hive Notes, recently debuted as a standalone collaborative note taking and task management app for Zoom Meetings.
“We’re delighted to be a part of Hive’s recent funding round and team up with a company that is hyper-focused on its users,” said Colin Born, Head of Corporate Development at Zoom. “Our goal is to make the meeting experience more engaging and help our customers collaborate seamlessly, and Hive Notes does exactly that. We can’t wait to see what else we can build together.”
In 2021, Hive doubled the number of feature requests received and tripled the amount of features delivered to its customers. In the last two months alone, Hive’s product and engineering team built 40 new features.
“At Hive, we believe that our users know best what they need to get their work done fast. It’s important to them to be able to influence the shape of software in their work life,” said John Furneaux, co-founder and CEO of Hive. “That’s why we’re handing over the steering wheel to our community. We’re giving everyone an equal opportunity to contribute to the productivity tools they use every day and drive the direction of our products.”
About Hive
Made in New York, Hive is the world’s first community-built project management and collaboration platform helping teams of all sizes move faster and work better together. Hive customers include teams at Anthem, Comcast, Electronic Arts and Toyota. The company has raised funding from leading venture capital firms Rembrandt Venture Partners, Tribeca Venture Partners, Angelpad, Comcast Ventures and Vocap Investment Partners.
