Hivy (HX16) acquired by ManagedByQ: turning a new leaf, keeping the same vision

We’re proud to announce that Hivy has been acquired by Managed by Q. Hivy co-founders, Pauline Tordeur and Pierre-Alain Loiseau, will join forces with Managed by Q to build a product that offices need to fulfill their everyday needs.

The Whiteboard

Our initial observation — which still mostly holds true to this day — was that software has made work easier for all employees, except office operations teams. From this observation, we laid the vision to build software to easily run an office, codename: OfficeX.

Our vision was shaped around the key areas that most impacted office management teams. Room booking, visitor management, leave management, employee request flow, and catering needs: all were part of our initial ambition for “Tipi”, which was to become an app store for the office.

For trademark reasons, Tipi was later dropped in favor of Hivy. And for business reasons, Hivy’s prime focus became what it is today: a task management tool for office operations teams and an employee helpdesk.

The Product-Market Fit

2016 marks an important year for Hivy: it got its first Product-Market fit, drawing in large accounts like Slack and Typeform. It became increasingly obvious that Hivy’s future was in the US. To further entrench the company on the other side of the Atlantic, Hivy’s co-founders applied to YC. And the rest is history.

Hivy joined the prestigious accelerator in San Francisco in January 2017 as part of their W17 Batch. Following 3 intense months of growth but also continued exploration of the competitive landscape, the strategic vision for Hivy was further refined: one of the key takeaways from YC was that, in order to scale, a significant seed round would have to be raised to build a service that would go beyond pure software.

The Acquisition

Enter ManagedByQ. A company with a fantastic mindset, a highly complementary set of assets required to succeed in the space, and robust financials. Q differs from other office management related companies by delivering the same services with a personal, and highly flexible, touch. Services are either provided by their own staff or via vetted partners available on their marketplace.

In addition, the fit between Hivy co-founders, Pauline Tordeur and Pierre-Alain Loiseau, and Managed By Q’s CEO Dan Teran was optimal. Dan went as far as to get some of Hivy’s clients on the phone, personally. A move that just goes to show that their customer centric company cultures couldn’t be more aligned.

At eFounders, we are thrilled to see them take on the bold same vision that we had sketched out for the project back in 2015. And we’re convinced that, together, they’ll take it further than we could have ever dreamed of.