In a recent development for the remote infrastructure technology space, Firstbase announced that it had raised $50 million in a Series B funding round. This brings its investment funding to a total of $65 million. The newly acquired funds will help the company continue its growth and expand its operations, recruitment, and product development.

What does Firstbase do in the remote infrastructure space?

Founded in September 2019, just six months before the COVID-19 pandemic changed the workforce as we knew it, Firstbase was able to scale rapidly. The pandemic allowed Firstbase to address the sudden demand for remote infrastructure by companies that needed their employees to work from home indefinitely. 

Firstbase is software that is primarily concerned with simplifying the onboarding, use, and offboarding of physical equipment for remote companies. It can help set up tech equipment, manage all the equipment within a company network, and retrieve physical equipment for remote workforces. Firstbase focuses on easing the process for employees to have great experiences at the company while still being remote workers. 

What does the Firstbase funding mean for the remote work industry?

Firstbase’s funding round demonstrates an interest from tech investors in a niche technology that can automate the process of having employees work remotely.

In the company announcement, Chris Herd, co-founder and CEO of Firstbase said:

“The Great Reset is underway for today’s workforce. The millions of people who left unfulfilling jobs are in search of new opportunities with greater flexibility. The ability to work remotely is no longer a perk, it’s a requirement, differentiating companies in recruiting and helping them retain and attract great employees. Going remote is broken. It’s expensive and time consuming and can lead to bad employee experiences. Businesses need to adjust everything from HR to IT to facilities to efficiently offer a seamless, enjoyable employee experience.”

Firstbase is categorized in the Other IT Infrastructure Software category on G2, as no category is an exact match for it presently. The company breaks into a new technology space that remotely manages the outsourcing of hardware and IT needs for a company. Firstbase has HR-aligned capabilities that help with the onboarding and offboarding process by combining it with IT management technology to improve the employee experience. It is a niche crossover between HR technology and IT management technology, which has a place in the market considering the prevalence of employees working remotely. The closest HR Software category on G2 related to what Firstbase does would be Onboarding Software.

The Onboarding Software category on G2 sees declining ROI

An interesting trend within the Onboarding category data relates to how certain top-performing products in the market are doing based on their return on investment (ROI) from the buyers. The ROIs seem to be trending downwards in the past year, with top performers in the category collectively stabilizing at the end of 2021. The ROI on onboarding products has been returning favorable results for buyers by giving buyers a higher return on investment than expected. Onboarding software may be catching up with the current trends of handling remote onboarding processes, which means the products are found to be better investments over time for buyers.

Remote work is changing the game in workforce HR management strategies, and there is also a need to manage equipment if employees are to work remotely. Some onboarding products can handle the HR paperwork process, software onboarding, and IT onboarding process, but not enough to be the standard. An evolution of the capabilities of HR technology, especially in onboarding software, would allow even more buyers to feel satisfied overall with their product for continuing renewals of investment. 

With remote working becoming essential to maintaining talent in a company, organizations will have to find ways to adapt HR technology and set up their new hires. Companies like Firstbase could pave the way for new technology to manage the remote onboarding process by combining IT infrastructure technology to broaden the ability to maintain a fully remote workforce. Essentially, integrating with or working alongside IT is a vital step in developing future HR technology.

Edited by Jigmee Bhutia