The funding from Mercia Ventures (Mercia) and Foresight Group (Foresight) also involved YFM Equity Partners (YFM), who led the deal. Mercia and Foresight have supported WorkBuzz since 2021 using funds from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) and they both invested in this round using funds from the MEIF.
The Milton Keynes headquartered business said the investment will enable it to pursue international expansion, enhance sales and marketing, and deliver new tech innovations to its growing roster of clients.
WorkBuzz provides businesses with an agile employee engagement platform, backed by expert consultancy, which helps forward-thinking organisations gather real-time feedback from their people, analyses this in real-time using AI, and guides managers on where to focus in order to build great cultures and improve employee retention.
WorkBuzz, which was launched in 2018 by Steven Frost, has almost doubled in size in the last two years and currently serves over 400 organisations including Five Guys, Shell Energy and HS2.
Steven Frost, WorkBuzz CEO, said: “We’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far and are very grateful for the support of our clients and partners, but it feels like we’re just getting started. This latest round of investment will be transformative – it’s 180% more than in our entire history to date. We’re excited to scale up our investments in our platform and new innovations, co-creating these with our clients, as well as expand into the US. With generational talent shortages and disruptive technologies like generative AI, there’s never been a more exciting time to build an HR tech company and make an impact.”
Stephen Windsor, investment director at Mercia added: “Organisational culture is hugely important to the success and health of a company. As the environments in which people work continue to evolve and companies compete for the very best talent, understanding, diagnosing and cementing a strong workplace culture has never been so important. Steve Frost and his team at WorkBuzz are unlocking these insights for companies and having led their Seed round we are now proud to continue our support by participating in the Series A to fuel the next chapter of growth”.
Ray Harris, director at Foresight Group, commented: “Since initial investment, WorkBuzz has gone on an exciting growth journey, which will continue with the additional support. The WorkBuzz team has been a pleasure to work with and have put in place solid foundations. We look forward to continuing to support the team and are excited for their next phase of growth.”
Zickie Lim, partner and head of venture capital investments at Mills & Reeve said: “This is an excellent example of the UK’s highly collaborative investment ecosystem working together to back exciting fast growth technology businesses with their global scale up plans. WorkBuzz with its industry leading software is now poised for phenomenal growth in a fast-developing market. The visionary team has huge aspirations for the company and this latest round of funding will enable them to achieve their ambitions.”
Zickie Lim and principal associate, Katharine Robinson, of Mills & Reeve advised Mercia and Foresight.
The Midlands Engine Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.
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