Enterprise app Blink and data company kleene have reasons to stay keen with some new tech funding.
Blink’s app is designed exclusively for frontline workers, and it has raised a Series A financing of $20 million (£15 million) led by Next47, including participation from early investors Partech and TechStars. Blink is now valued at $100 million (£74.6 million).
Following its $2 million (£1.5 million) Seed funding round in April, kleene, which provides a no-code platform, has raised $14 million (£10.4 million) in a Series A. The round was led by Octopus Ventures.
Think Blink
Software as a Service firm Blink has offices in New York, London and Sydney. It was founded in 2015.
The tech company explains: “There are approximately 2.7 billion frontline workers globally, accounting for 80% of the world’s workforce; yet, today’s enterprise software is largely aimed at the desk-worker.”
Blink has over 93,000 enterprise users. It wants to create dialogue between frontline workers and executive teams in real-time via the mobile app. For instance, users can see employee-generated content and get “one-click access” to other apps.
In less than two years, the company has grown from 14 employees to 70, and is set to double again within six months – with 40 planned in North America. Sensing action in the US, Blink will also relocate key members of the executive team, including founder and CEO Sean Nolan, from London to New York.
Nolan says: “This new investment fuels the scaling of Blink’s all-in-one employee retention platform in the midst of a global recruitment crisis. As labour shortages hit industries with historically high staff turnover, such as healthcare, it’s clear that wages aren’t the only factor driving employees away.”
According to Blink, its clients make up over 50% of the UK transport market, and include National Rail, Stagecoach and Go-Ahead. In the US it has over 100 clients across healthcare, transport, logistics, manufacturing and government.
kleene’s Scheme
London-based kleene was established in 2017. Its technology is used for automating data analytics infrastructure, and offers businesses data for the decision-making process.
The firm connects a variety of data sources into a single one. For example, its website lists sources such as Google Analytics, Google Sheets, Facebook, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, Stripe and Xero.
During the past seven months, it has expanded its offering of integrations and developed new features.
According to the clean-minded kleene, its client list and team has also grown. It moved into a new office in the heart of London and built out its sales, product, marketing, data, tech and customer success functions.
Andrew Thomas, CEO and Co-Founder of kleene, states: “We wanted to make it easy for businesses to access insight without working on the data prep. To remove the data drudgery. To level the playing field. When all of the value is in the analysis, why is so much time and money spent on the plumbing?
“We decided to solve the problem by building an all-in-one, no-code platform that helps business leaders generate value from data, without the need for expensive data teams. We wanted to democratise data.”
The company will use the funding for US expansion, recruitment and development.
