North East Development Capital Fund completes follow-on investment in Hive HR

Hive HR, an employee engagement software solution, has secured £500,000 of further funding from the North East Development Capital Fund (NEDCF) after enjoying strong growth and doubling revenue in the last 12 months. 

Since the NEDCF’s original investment in Hive HR in April 2019 the business has scaled up its recruitment and product development as well as continuing to add to its impressive client base, which includes River Island, Hermes, Travelodge, Tarmac, and Northumbria Police. Today’s funding will assist the business on its next phase of growth.

Hive HR is a cloud-based employee feedback platform and people science consultancy, providing organisations with a modern and measurable approach to employee engagement. Business leaders, HR teams and managers use Hive to regularly gather feedback from members of staff on all aspects of their work experience; and use real-time workforce insights to improve employee experience, manage organisational change and boost business performance.

The business has a strong management team led by CEO, John Ryder, who has over 15 years’ experience in digital marketing and the technology sector, John was previously Head of Innovation at leading North East eCommerce firm Visualsoft.

The global SaaS and HR Tech market is expanding rapidly with annual double digit growth fuelled by organisations demanding more cost effective and flexible cloud-based solutions. Over 28% of global HR enterprise applications are now being delivered on a SaaS platform and is forecasted to increase significantly to 86% by 2022.

David Nixon, Investment Manager at Maven, said: “As the importance of attracting, motivating and retaining employees becomes paramount in today’s competitive environment, Hive have developed a leading proposition through its attractive, user friendly, real-time employee engagement platform that helps drive productivity and efficiency gains for its clients. We are delighted to continue our support for John and Hive by leading the latest funding round which will enable this strong team to embark on several exciting developments for the business as it continues its fantastic growth story.”

John Ryder, Founder and CEO of Hive HR, said: “The success of this investment round is a massive vote of confidence in our future and gives us an even stronger foundation to keep growing as a business. Maven has been a huge support to Hive and there’s absolutely no doubt that we’ll be using our investment wisely to develop our product and our people—bringing onboard new talent across the business, with a key focus in Product and Engineering departments, while also training and elevating our current team members. I’ve personally never worked with such a talented, passionate bunch of people and we’re all really proud of what we’ve achieved together so far.”

North East business looking for funding to grow? Speak to Maven’s local team about your current and future needs, and our experienced investment professionals will be able to guide you on your funding requirements. Contact our team today on 0191 731 8590.