Seeking to be hybrid work all-in-1 platform, Envoy acquires Worksphere

COVID-19 forced many organizations to adjust to the current realities of the global business landscape, resulting in a rapid transformation of the workplace. With the pandemic changing the scope of most businesses, remote and hybrid work are the “new normal.” The third edition of a study by McKinsey found 87% of people choose to work flexibly when they have the option to do so. Per a Cisco poll, 74% of surveyed employees say that hybrid working has improved family relationships. Undoubtedly, remote and hybrid have come to stay.

However, running a hybrid workplace is complicated and organizations are turning to workplace management solutions like Envoy to smooth out their business processes. In a previous interview with VentureBeat, Envoy founder and CEO Larry Gadea said Envoy’s customers came to the company in the aftermath of COVID-19, seeking to “reopen their businesses for essential workers, but in a safe way that would help people feel confident about coming back.”

Founded in 2013 as a sign-in system for office reception desks, Envoy evolved and gained widespread prominence during the lockdown as enterprises sought new ways to keep working despite restrictions on gathering.

The pandemic has since wound down and Envoy is looking to move from a pandemic-boom organization to one that will continue to serve the wider industry now and beyond. To achieve this, Envoy today announced it has now added Worksphere — a platform that simplifies “the hybrid office” — to its rank of acquired platforms as it races to build a complete, end-to-end workplace management tool. This acquisition follows Envoy’s buy-over of desk reservation and scheduling startup, OfficeTogether earlier in August.

Envoy claims it enables workplace leaders to move faster — from streamlining processes that can get in the way of doing great work, to community building. Envoy helps save time and money by having everything needed in the same place, including visitor check-in, desk and room booking, mailroom management and real-time workplace data to make space decisions.

Shape-shifting into a hybrid work platform-for-all

Announcing his delight at the strategic acquisition of the YC-backed, Seattle-based Worksphere in a blog post, Gadea said “like Envoy, the Worksphere team built a workplace management platform because they recognized the tremendous opportunity to innovate and challenge the status quo.” He noted the value alignment between the two organizations and how the acquisition will accelerate workplace hybrid work processes. The team at Worksphere is expected to work with Envoy on delivering products that will aid the future of work.

Gadea stated that Envoy has always had ambitious plans for the future, but it’s only by joining the collective experience and thoughtfulness of both teams that they can realize truly innovative products. “The Worksphere team will be key in our ability to scale thoughtful design to highly-complex enterprises and bring industry-leading reliability and customizability to every product we build.”

This latest acquisition, according to the company’s press release, will position Envoy in the class of product-led enterprises that maintain relevance beyond the pandemic. Some of Envoy’s clients include big names like Slack, Stripe, Pinterest, Hulu and Mazda. On the list of Envoy’s competitors, according to G2, are The Receptionist, Traction Guest, Proxyclick, SwipedOn, Teem by iOFFICE and others. Since its inception, the company has raised $170.2 million in total funding to date.