FlexOS has closed an oversubscribed $1 million seed round to drive employee engagement and retention for companies that are adopting a hybrid work model. Do Ventures, an early-stage VC firm, led the funding round, followed by VIK Partners, Vulpes Ventures, Hustle Fund, Wing Vasiksiri (iSeed SEA), and GK Plug and Play Ventures.
Founded this year by Daan van Rossum, Greg Marschall, and Jonah Levey, FlexOS is a B2B SaaS HR Tech platform that enables companies to launch and manage successful hybrid teams and offices in Asia-Pacific. They’re on a mission to help companies thrive in any hybrid structure by focusing on organizing workplaces and engaging employees.
With FlexOS, users are enabled to experience gamified office check-ins, desk and meeting room booking, and up to 10 monthly events and activities tailored to employees’ unique interests. These employee-centric features work in unison to get people together again and to make the office a place people love coming to on the days they choose to do so.
Having backgrounds in employee experience, coworking, and technology, the FlexOS founding team saw the shift of companies moving towards hybrid working. They also gained a unique understanding of how to best address companies' challenges when transitioning to this flexible way of working.
Together, they developed FlexOS to offer companies a data-driven set of tools to engage and retain hybrid teams and operate hybrid offices.
The FlexOS CEO, who's also the CEO of Dreamplex, said they’re incredibly excited to have the belief and backing from the renowned investors who were previously behind Paypal, Dropbox, Webflow, VUDU, Chope, Loship, MindX, Coolmate, Nerdwallet, and more. Daan added that this shows the opportunity to solve hybrid work’s biggest challenges is real and large.
“With their support, we’re uniquely positioned to take what we’ve learned in running engaging offices for hundreds of employers and bring it to any company in the region,” Daan said in a statement. “It’s our deep belief that the best things happen when we’re together. In a world where we work less and less in the same place, we need to bring people (back) together to connect, belong, collaborate, celebrate, learn, and have fun.”
These investors have confirmed the tremendous opportunity that hybrid work presents in Asia. According to research from McKinsey, a leading consultancy, 90% of companies will switch to hybrid work, combining work from home and work from the office.
Vy Le, General Partner at Do Ventures, shares the same sentiment with Daan in reimagining how teams can collaborate effectively across time zones in ways that promote productivity and well-being from anywhere.
“FlexOS is a high potential team with extensive industry knowledge and a great passion for creating the ideal employee experience in the new era of work, which can allow it to effectively penetrate other markets in Asia-Pacific,” Vy added.
In Southeast Asia, hybrid work is often not even a choice for employers. In Singapore, two in five employees would not accept a job if their employer didn’t provide them with flexibility for when and where to work. In Vietnam, only 9% of Gen Z want to work in an office full-time. And in Indonesia, 83.5% of employees prefer to work in a hybrid mode.
Their employers experience challenges when introducing hybrid work. Companies need to introduce, measure, and optimize hybrid ‘policies.’ They must redesign their offices and operate them differently to provide on-demand spaces to focus, meet, and collaborate. Most importantly, they need to be much more intentional about their employee engagement, as a vast body of research shows that connection, community, and company culture suffer when people do not work together in person.
According to Jonah Levey, Executive Director of FlexOS, managing a hybrid workforce and workplace is difficult, even for the most advanced companies. FlexOS goes well beyond addressing the administrative challenges of hybrid work by creating an engaging and fulfilling employee experience.
“We help employees stay more connected to their colleagues and their companies, feel part of a workplace community while working in or out of the office, and ultimately support people and companies to be more successful. This meaningful outcome, along with working alongside a phenomenal group of co-founders and investors, makes me thrilled to be a part of FlexOS,” Jonah noted.