Clarendon portfolio company Thrive a Belfast based provider of employee communications software and support, has secured strategic investment to help facilitate its plans to grow users fourfold to one million by 2022.
The company is also initially creating 10 new jobs in marketing, software development, and customer care.
Thrive provides software and support to make employee communications easy and cost-effective. Its client-base includes councils, healthcare companies, manufacturing businesses, food firms, retailers and other organisations across the UK, Ireland and internationally.
The new investment, which comes from the Halo Business Angel Network (HBAN), Co-Fund II and private investors, is being used for product development and international sales. It brings investment by shareholders in the business to over £2.75million.
HBAN is a joint initiative of Enterprise Ireland, InterTradeIreland and Invest Northern Ireland, dedicated to the all-island promotion of business angel investment. Co-Fund II is supported by ERDF under the EU Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme 2014-2020 and is managed by Clarendon Fund Managers.
Thrive, which recently hit 250,000 licenced users, has won a series of major new clients this year, including US media corporation HBO; Santos Brasil, the largest port operator in Latin America; Fairchild Medical Center in California; and Antrim & Newtownabbey Borough Council.
The company’s platform, which allows organisations to create beautifully designed native iPhone and Android apps as well as responsive web apps, is particularly relevant for businesses with employees who are not desk-based. This is something that has attracted well-known names such as Carlsberg, An Post, and Air France KLM as long-standing customers.
Thrive’s Managing Director, James Scott, said: “We are seeing organisations all over the world waking up to the strong business benefits of good employee comms. With the vast majority of people now carrying a smartphone, it makes an app the perfect way to connect with employees. We’ve designed the Thrive platform to be so easy to use that organisations can be up and running and improving the way they communicate and share information with employees in no time.”
Scott continued: “Our clients are using the Thrive platform to provide employees with information they need to do their job, and engage them more fully in the organisation. Companies are seeing direct tangible benefits from using the Thrive platform including happier team-members, reduced absenteeism, increased productivity and better customer service,” he added.
Stephen Gunning, Thrive’s Co-Founder and Chairman, said: “This investment means we can now activate a five-year growth plan, supported by ongoing assistance from Invest NI, which will see us expand our UK, Ireland and international customer-base, grow our team as well as further developing our Thrive software platform and services. The investment we have secured will allow us to compete even more strongly in this fast-growing international market.”
