HiveHR secures £500k Seed Follow On investment led by Maven

01 June 2020

HiveHR secures £500,000 following strong growth

Employee voice platform secures further funding after enjoying strong growth as more organisations look to stay connected to their newly remote workforce.

The North East Development Capital Fund (“NEDCF” or “the Fund”) has led a £500,000 funding round for Newcastle-based HiveHR Ltd (“Hive”), an innovative employee listening tool, operating in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) space. The Fund, which is managed by Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”), has invested £250,000, alongside £250,000 from the Future Fund, a government backed scheme supported by the British Business Bank.

The transaction follows an impressive six months of growth with more and more organisations now prioritising how their people are feeling in the midst of significant changes to their ways of working. The funding will be used to accelerate Hive’s roadmap alongside a renewed focus on outbound sales to support its expanding digital presence and online services.

Since the NEDCF’s original investment in HiveHR in April 2019 the business has enjoyed strong growth and has continued to add to its impressive client base, which includes River Island, Hermes, Travelodge, Tarmac, and Northumbria Police. Last year’s investment assisted the business in building out its research and product development function and investing in its sales and marketing activities to grow its customer reach.

Hive is a B2B SaaS proposition playing in the work tech space and provides organisations with a modern and actionable approach to employee voice. The business has a strong management team led by CEO, John Ryder, who has over 15 years’ experience in digital marketing and the technology sector. John was previously Head of Innovation at leading North East eCommerce firm Visualsoft.

The global SaaS and HR Tech market is expanding rapidly with annual double-digit growth fuelled by organisations demanding more cost-effective and flexible cloud-based solutions. Over 28% of global HR enterprise applications are now being delivered on a SaaS platform and is forecasted to increase significantly to 86% by 2022.

David Nixon, Investment Manager at Maven, said: 

“Despite an incredibly challenging year, the Hive platform continues to provide a key service to more and more organisations as they evolve their remote working operation. Today’s transaction is a further testament to all that Hive has achieved since we originally invested in 2019 and our belief in the future growth of the company. John and his team have created a strong business and we look forward to working with them as they accelerate their development plans.”     

John Ryder, Founder and CEO of Hive HR, said: 

“The pandemic has placed the spotlight on some very distinctive issues that elevate the case for Employee Voice further—such as remote and flexible working, wellbeing, inclusion, and culture. So, it’s great that we now have even more resource to continue to grow the business.”

                                                             —ends—

Further information

For media enquiries or any questions about the investment, please contact:

Maven Capital Partners  
David Nixon 07483 068 704 [email protected] 
Sapience (PR to Maven)   
Richard Morgan Evans
020 3195 3240 [email protected]

Notes to Editors

About Maven Capital Partners UK LLP       www.mavencp.com


Maven Capital Partners UK LLP (Maven) is an independent private equity house focused on the provision of flexible equity and debt funding for UK SMEs, and one of the most active managers in the UK having invested over £500 million in British businesses since 2009.

Headquartered in Glasgow, and with eleven offices throughout the UK, Maven has over 90 investment and support professionals providing a truly nationwide coverage. Maven has £660 million funds under management and ready to invest, and manages assets for a variety of client funds, including Venture Capital Trusts, UK regional fund mandates, and Maven Investor Partners, a syndicate of institutional, family office and experienced investors.

About the North East Fund

The North East Fund is a suite of five venture capital and loan funds which was established in April 2018, to invest £120m in around 600 North East businesses in the period to March 2023.  The fund managers provide business development advice and investment finance to small and medium sized enterprises based in the seven Local Authority areas of North East England: Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle, South Tyneside, Gateshead Sunderland and County Durham.  The programme encourages investment in and the commercialisation of new technologies, including low carbon technologies, as well as stimulating new business creation, private investment and entrepreneurialism in the North East, with a view to creating over 2,500 new jobs.  The North East Fund has overall responsibility for the programme, which is delivered through five separate funds, each managed by independent, FCA regulated fund managers.  Details of these, and up to date information on the progress of the programme, is available on The North East Fund’s website: www.northeastfund.org

The North East Fund has been established with funding from the North East of England European Regional Development Fund programme, the European Investment Bank and from returns on previous North East based, publicly supported investment funds.  It is jointly owned by the seven North East local authorities.

About the European Regional Development Fund

The North East Fund will receive up to £58,500,000 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.  The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund.  Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.

About the European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) will lend up to £60,000,000 to the North East Fund programme.  The European Investment Bank is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals.  For more information, visit: http://www.eib.org

Safiya Marzook

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