“We asked ourselves, ‘Hold on a minute, why are we building a business that solves the commuting problem if no one’s going to be commuting?’”
Still focused on solving problems for workers, Bouremoum created a new startup: Hofy Ltd., a remote work technology company.
The company’s software enables organizations to rent, install, manage and retrieve enterprise hardware such as laptops, chairs, desks, keyboards, printers and monitors for their remote team members, regardless of location.
Hofy has more than 35 enterprise customers and claims to have an on-time delivery rate of 99%, sourcing its hardware from tech companies such as Apple Inc., Dell Technologies, Lenovo Group and Logitech International.
“No one seemed to be solving the (work-from-home) problem around physical distribution,” Bouremoum said. “We asked, ‘Can we make the process of equipping someone with physical goods anywhere in the world as easy as adding them to Slack?’”
Hofy’s target demographic is startups with 50 to 1,000 employees. The company said its products are 10 to 20 times less expensive per employee than the cost of an office space in major cities.
As remote work and the need for at-home software boomed amid the pandemic, so has Hofy. Though it did not release its sales numbers, the company said its revenue has grown 10 times over in the past six months, and its customer base has grown by 300%.
Some of the company’s major clients include financial tech company Form3 Financial Cloud, the U.K. National Health Service, software company Storyblok, online hiring platform Frontier Talent Inc. and enterprise tech company Attest Technologies Ltd.
“Most of our customers are hiring rapidly and are also starting to hire abroad,” Bouremoum said. “A key thing that’s happening is that the world has shifted from a myriad of local talent pools into a single global talent pool.”
And as the company picked up steam, it has seen interest from investors as well. On Oct. 19, the company announced a $15.2 million investment with participation from Stride.VC, Kindred Capital, Activum SG Capital Management, TrueSight Ventures, 20VC and Day One Ventures.
“Remote, hybrid and distributed work is here to stay, and organizations need scalable ways to attract and retain the best talent who demand flexibility,” Fred Destin, founder of Stride.VC, said in a statement. “Hofy democratizes the employee experience.”
Bouremoum said Hofy plans to use the funding to formalize its U.S. expansion. The United States is its third-biggest market after the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The company has four warehouses in Europe for distribution and is planning to open up its third on the East Coast.
Though Hofy started in the United Kingdom, Bouremoum said it’s on track to open its first U.S. office and headquarters in Santa Monica in mid-November. The company is “remote-first,” Bouremoum said, and plans to increase its staff from around 30 to 120 by the end of the second quarter of 2022.
The company’s global expansion is a part of a bigger goal to become the “big name” that employers associate with getting their remote-working equipment.
“We want to basically be able to fulfill 200 countries in under five working days, which is pretty hard to achieve,” Bouremoum said.
