In March 2020 Sami Buremom and Michael Ginzo, with experience in consulting (Buremom worked for Bain & Co.) and software development (Ginzo led product at renting startup Deel), came together to launch an office equipment company called Hofie. Remote employees. Before long, Hoffey was earning “low-six figures,” according to Buremo, as the pandemic forced workers around the world to shift from home to work.
More than two years later, investors still believe Hoffey’s mission, obviously. The company today closed a $15 million Series B round led by CNP, with participation from Stride, 20VC, Day One Ventures, Kindred Capital, Activum and TrueSight, bringing Hof’s total funding to $30.2 million. Buremo told TechCrunch that the fresh cash will be used to expand Hoffin’s services to more countries and grow IT services.
“Without the pandemic, we wouldn’t exist and it accelerated remote work in general by 20 years, creating a huge market opportunity for this solution. Now our growth comes from our customers hiring more employees,” Bouremoum told TechCrush in an email interview. “Originally, Hofie was going to raise a large round in early 2022, but since then, we’ve built a business that’s cash flow positive and doesn’t require large amounts of VC dollars. In this way, we will not destroy existing investors and employees.
Hoffi, which initially only served customers in the UK but is now present in 110 countries, handles equipment orders and shipments for corporate customers. Once integrated with an HR system, Hofy can be used to set rules such as budgets and usage policies. New hires invited to the platform can order their equipment – laptops, monitors or accessories – before their first day.
Image Credits: Huffy
For customers, Hofy provides support, including loaner equipment that needs maintenance in the event equipment. The platform manages off-boarding, and allows administrators to remotely wipe a pre-set of devices.
“On average, companies spend 3.5 hours on-boarding a new hire,” Buremom said. “Hoffey’s equipment is leased, turning upfront capital costs into manageable operating costs that are tightly aligned with the dynamic nature of startup hiring and turnover. Clients want to ensure that every team member has a productive, compliant remote work setup wherever they are in the world. [can] Integrate with a suite of tools and help employers globally recruit and manage the employee lifecycle.
In addition, Hoffi provides an API that enables HR providers to offer hardware provisioning and recovery as a managed service. One of the startup’s first integration partners is Dell, Ginzo’s old employer, which allows customers to buy and ship devices using Hoffi on Dell’s platform.
Bouremoum continued, “Imagine being able to not only manage a new digital onboarding journey on Workday, but physically access their device without leaving Workday. “This is the type of application that our API enables.”
Hoffi will compete with Fleet, which recently raised $20 million for a service that helps track and manage enterprise devices such as laptops. There’s another competitor everywhere – a consultant that works with companies to implement remote work arrangements, including managing the device lifecycle.
The bigger, more existential threat to Hoffey is the shift in attitudes around remote work. While employees say working from home has made them more productive — and saved them money — many managers are skeptical, a clear threat to remote equipment management startups like Hofy. In a recent survey by Microsoft, 85% of bosses said that hybrid work makes it more difficult to be sure that employees are being productive. These same bosses are strongly encouraging workers to return to the office. According to Castle Systems, the security firm earlier this month saw an average of 47.5% of workers in the office in the country’s top 10 metro areas, compared to pre-pandemic levels.
If Buremo had any concerns, he did not express them.
“We made a decision in early 2022 to transition to a cash flow positive operating model, and we’ve been able to do it faster than we originally planned,” he said, declining to disclose revenue numbers. “We have a strong product in a large and growing market, so we’re not worried about dealing with headwinds, especially with this funding so soon.”
London-based Hoffey plans to grow its team from 95 employees to 120 by the end of the year.
