Boston officially has a new tech unicorn on the scene.
Nexthink, a startup that aims to help companies better manage their employees’ digital experience, announced Monday it closed on a $180 million Series D round led by Permira through its growth opportunities fund, bringing the company’s total valuation to $1.1 billion.
“Our new valuation is a testament to the market momentum, and how seriously companies are taking employees’ digital experiences,” Nexthink co-founder and CEO Pedro Bados told Built In via email. “As the future of work becomes increasingly digital, a seamless technology experience is essential to success.”
These days, managing employees’ digital experience is, essentially, synonymous with ensuring people are happy at work. Companies use a variety of software and technology to help employees do their work more effectively, and it’s important to manage their interactions with that tech to avoid what Bados calls a “war for talent.”
“If day-to-day experiences at work are not positive, then employees will leave, and new talent won’t join,” Bados said. “If employees are not having a positive digital experience, they are not having a positive work experience, and, as a result, both the employee and the company suffer.”
Nexthink works to prevent this by helping companies ensure they are giving their employees an overall positive digital experience. The platform provides real-time analytics, employee sentiment and automated remediation to help IT teams discover, monitor and proactively manage the digital services offered to employees.
Bados says maintaining a positive digital experience for employees has always been an issue for companies. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced all of these companies to switch to an entirely digital work model overnight, the matter became much more pressing.
“With the shift to remote working, employees are now completely dependent on a wide variety of technologies and applications to work. Without technology, it’s impossible to do their job, so if their technology experience is poor, they won’t just be unhappy — they’ll be completely cut off from work,” Bados said. “The sudden shift to remote work revealed just how reliant on technology we are for nearly every aspect of our jobs.”
As a result, demand for Nexthink has grown over the last year. In 2020, the company crossed the $100 million annual recurring revenue threshold and added 180 new customers worldwide. It also released several new products, including a solution for remote workers, and an experience optimization tool for support teams.
Bados anticipates that this renewed interest in digital employee experience management won’t go away anytime soon, even after the pandemic is over and more people return to the office.
“The market potential is massive,” Bados said. “Even with a return to offices in the future, more companies than ever will be supporting remote work environments. As the workforce continues to become increasingly digital, this need will only continue to grow.”
To keep up, Nexthink plans to use this fresh funding to continue innovating its platform and growing its team worldwide. The company was founded in 2004 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and began growing its Boston presence about nine years ago. Now, it has about 700 employees globally, 150 of which are in Boston, its U.S. headquarters.
Bados says the company plans to hire between 200 and 300 new employees globally over the next 12 to 18 months, with 120 open positions available now.
_0.jpg)
