Personal blog of Yzmir Ramirez

Eden, the office management platform founded by Joe du Bey and Kyle Wilkinson, is today announcing the launch of several new enterprise software features. The company, which offers a marketplace for office managers to procure services like office cleaning, repairs, etc., is looking to offer a more comprehensive platform.

The software features include a COVID team safety tool that tracks who is coming into the office, and lets them reserve a specific desk to help ensure social distancing precautions are being taken.

“For us, the pandemic really accelerated our plans around enterprise tools,” said Joe du Bey. “We realized by talking to our clients that what they need right now isn’t services. Services are important, but what they really want in this moment is to have software so they can get back into the office.”

Eden is also introducing a service desk ticketing tool to allow workers to make requests or file a ticket for a broken piece of equipment from their own desktop, as well as a visitor management tool and a room booking tool.

The company’s acquisition of Managed By Q, its biggest competitor in the services space, also greatly accelerated its ability to deliver software. Managed By Q, which was acquired by WeWork in 2019 for $220 million, was already on the trajectory of building out software well before its acquisition by Eden, and had itself acquired companies like Hivy to offer SaaS-based tools to customers.

As Eden grows its product portfolio, competition still abounds. Envoy (with just under $60 million in funding) has been in the visitor management space since its inception and is looking to broaden its product portfolio beyond office visitors. UpKeep is charging into the service ticket space with a mobile app to make it easier for service workers within an office to do their job and move seamlessly from task to task. Meanwhile, Robin is in the mix with its own room booking platform.

The point? There is clearly a rush to build out a platform that helps folks manage the physical space of an office and the people within it. Eden, with $40 million in total funding, is well positioned to duke it out for the top spot among a variety of competitors who are angling to ‘do it all.’

“This is a board meeting question: are we fighting too many battles or is comprehensiveness our most important asset?” said du Bey. “We have a completeness to our vision. A lot of our customers are saying they want a few tools from one place versus the very fragmented experience they have today. But there are trade offs in comprehensiveness. It means that someone can can spend all day building a hundred integrations for their app that for us might not be possible. So, there are some really interesting trade offs.”

That’s not without hardship, however. Eden had to layoff about 40 percent of its workforce amid the coronavirus pandemic. And though COVID has slowed growth, du Bey says that revenue in April 2020 was still higher than it was the year prior.

Alongside trying to support marketplace partners and customers through the pandemic, Eden has also introduced new ways to search for service providers, including a way to solicit a bid from black-owned businesses in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Eden team is 52 percent female. Black employees represent 12 percent of the workforce, and Latinx employees represent 8 percent of the workforce.

Eden, the workplace management platform that connects office managers with service providers, today announced the close of a $25 million Series B round led by Reshape. Participants in the round also include Fifth Wall Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan, RXR Realty, Thor Equities, Bessemer Venture Partners, Alate Partners, Quiet Capital, S28 Capital, Canvas Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Upshift Partners, Impala Ventures, ENIAC Ventures, and Crystal Towers, among others.

Eden was founded by Joe Du Bey and Kyle Wilkinson back in 2015 and launched out of Y Combinator as an on-demand tech repair and support service, sending IT specialists to consumers’ homes to help set up a printer or repair a cracked phone screen. Within the first year, Eden had pivoted its business entirely to the enterprise, helping B2B clients with their IT issues at much cheaper cost than employing an IT specialist full time.

By 2017, Eden had expanded well beyond IT support into other office management categories, like inventory management around supplies, cleaning, handiwork and more. Indeed, revenue shifted dramatically from Eden’s W2 wizards toward third-party vendors and service providers, with around 75 percent coming from third parties.

Today, 100 percent of Eden’s revenue comes from connecting offices with third-party providers. The company is live in 25 markets, including a few international cities like Berlin and London. Eden now has more than 2,000 service providers on the platform.

The next phase of the company, according to Du Bey, is to focus on the full spectrum of property management, zooming out to landlords and property managers.

“The broader vision we have is that everyone in the workplace will use Eden to have a better day at work, from the landlord of the building to the software engineer to the office manager, who is our primary client,” said Du Bey. “One thing we’ve learned is that there is a meaningful part of the world you can serve by working directly with the business or the office or facilities manager. But it might be the majority of our category where you really need to build a relationship with the landlord and the property manager to really be successful.”

To that end, Eden is currently in beta with software aimed at landlords and property managers that could facilitate registered guests and check-ins, as well as building-related maintenance and service issues.

Eden has raised just over $40 million in funding since inception.

 Eden, the office management and tech support platform, has today closed $10 million in Series A funding led by Spectrum 28, with participation from Fifth Wall Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, Canvas Ventures, Comcast Ventures, Eniac Ventures and other existing investors. Eden started out as a tech support service for both businesses and consumers. The… Read More

 Eden, the on-demand tech support company turned office support service, has today announced the launch of the platform in Oakland. That means that Eden’s service now covers all of the Bay Area, from Oakland to San Francisco to the Peninsula, including Palo Alto and Mountain View. Eden launched almost a year ago out of Y Combinator accelerator. Back then, Eden offered on-demand tech help… Read More

 Eden, the YC-backed on-demand tech installation and repair service that launched in May of this year, has shifted the focus of the business to the enterprise market, serving offices with tech help as opposed to serving both businesses and individuals. After starting out as a consumer-facing product, sending tech wizards to a specific location to solve a tech problem, like printer installation or… Read More