The reorganization of post-Cavid offices has highlighted an expensive paradox with workspaces often remain largely underused despite the generalization of the flex office and hybrid work. According to data collected by Deskbird on more than 10,000 sites, surfaces are oversized by almost 60 %. A company of 1,000 employees equipped with 800 jobs, with an average of 2.5 days of weekly presence, can thus lose more than 5 million euros per year due to empty offices, the equivalent of the budget of fifty recruitments.
The Swiss startup wants to respond to this ineffective with a workspace management platform combining offices, meeting rooms, parking lots and visitors, integrated directly into a mobile application, a browser, or tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack. The objective is to transform working environments into dynamic ecosystems capable of adjusting their capacities to real uses.
The next step involves exploitation of artificial intelligence. Deskbird develops workplace features predictive intelligence to project future needs, optimize resource allocation and anticipate the evolution of occupation methods.
Several large groups are already among customers, including Samsung, Deloitte, Phillips and Airbus.
A quick recomposition market
In Europe, the hybrid labor management software market and office spaces are growing rapidly, carried by the structural reduction in the surfaces used and by pressure on real estate costs. Several international players, such as Robin, Skedda or Officernd, are positioned alongside specialized European actors, including Sora in France, which values offices unoccupied by an operator model. The differences in strategies are notable: some favor the purely SaaS approach, others rely on a hybrid model combining technology and operational management services. In a context where companies seek to optimize each square meter, Europe appears to be one of the most dynamic markets in the world for workplace Intelligence.
Founded in 2020 in Schwyz by Ivan Cossu and Jonas Feller, Deskbird announced a fundraising of 19 million euros in series B. The Tour is led by Octopus Ventures, with the participation of Neva Sgr (Intetes Sanpaolo Bank), Avp, Alstin Capital, Session and Portfolion. Funding must support expansion in the United Kingdom and other European markets, as well as the reinforced integration of the platform with HR and IT systems of companies.
