Employee app Blink launches with £8.2m funding to connect key workers during Covid-19

LONDON, 20^th May, 2020 – Blink, a new smart employee app, officially launches today. Over the past 15 months, Blink has been developed and deployed in partnership with leading organisations including Stagecoach, Domino’s and the NHS to empower and protect frontline and key workers inside their organisations.

The company, founded by CEO Sean Nolan, designed the app to empower key workers on the frontline. It provides them with a single app to access all important information and systems and the ability to connect with their colleagues. Blink has already raised £8.2million in capital, led by Paris and San Francisco based venture capital firm Partech, alongside a roster of high profile AngelInvestors (see below).

For the past year, Blink has been partnering with frontline organisations to solve real-life problems for their workers. The first major rollout in January 2019was for 22,000 employees at transport company Stagecoach. Employees can access rosters, complete digital forms for leave, absence and accidents, access digital payslips and feedback in real-time to managers on issues and concerns impacting them.

Since then, Blink has been deployed in over 100 organisations in 14 countries including customers such as the NHS and the Prison Service. Two months into the lockdown, Blink had been accessed 25 million times by frontline workers.

The Blink app allows companies to push out information to employees’ personal phones, like wellbeing & compliance messages,  including Covid-19updates. Crucially, it supports employees who were previously disconnected from the workplace; it gives them a voice to feedback to managers; it protects them through reducing transference risks from paper by introducing digital forms.

Blink delivers tangible results for its customers: doubling employee engagement rates and dropping staff turnover by up to 26 per cent. In recognition of their new approach to transforming frontline culture, Blink won three ‘Digital Workplace of the Year’ awards last year in the USA, UK and Australia, against competition from Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

So far in 2020, the Blink team has doubled in size and opened offices in Sydney and New York. Demand for their service has required a further recruitment drive, with plans to double in size again this summer. April saw the company growing at the fastest pace yet, as companies adopted Blink as part of their Covid-19 response, with the highest growth in the Healthcare and Care Home sectors.

Blink is now opening up the platform so any company can get started immediately with a simple online set-up process via the company website. With a 14 day free trial, 24/7 support, and a 100 day money-back guarantee, companies can connect their entire workforces today.

To get set-up now, or book a demo click here.

Find the Blink press kit here

Contacts: press@joinblink.com

Sean Nolan, CEO, Blink comments:

“The Covid-19 crisis has underlined the critical role that front line and key workers play in our society. The whole deskless workforce has been starved of investment. Now more than ever they need empowering with better tools so they can effectively perform their essential roles. Every worker needs instant access to the latest information around staying safe, a voice for feeding back to management, and the capability to support their peers on the frontline.”

“We started Blink to make it easy to empower workers wherever they are; with information at their fingertips but also have a voice in improving day-to-day operations. We believe if you empower and equip those on the frontline, they are best positioned to make a difference. The organisations that will survive and thrive in the next decade will be those who put their frontline first.”

Peter Durkin, Business Development, Blink comments:

“Justas Zoom’s growth has been bullish amongst desk-based workers in lockdown, Blink has been explosive amongst deskless workers; particularly in the transport, health and care sectors.”

Romain Lavault, General Partner, Partech comments:

“Blink is the digital backbone of companies who run the real world and don’t sit behind a computer. Most organisations have realised during this crisis how much they depend on their frontline employees. It’s for the millions of essential nurses, bus drivers, construction workers or supply chain operators that run the economy. In just a year, Blink has already been adopted by more than 60,000enterprise users in the UK, US and Australia who open the Blink app more than15 times per day on average. This massive adoption is the best tribute to the incredible work done by Sean, Barry and the entire Blink team. We are thrilled to have been supporting them from Day 1 and look forward to the global expansion ahead!”

About Blink

Frontline workers make up 50% of the workforce, but too often they suffer from poor employee satisfaction, high staff turnover & frustrating operational processes. Working across transit, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, construction and facilities management sectors, Blink aims to bring about the Frontline of the Future; decentralised and empowered.

Blink's Investors

Partech- With a portfolio of almost 180 companies spread across 30 countries in Europe, the US, Africa, and Asia, Partech has been one of the leading international investors helping visionary founders for almost 40 years. The Partech team – made up of both former entrepreneurs and executives from 15 different countries – brings capital, experience, strategic support, and networks to entrepreneurs at every stage of development: seed, venture, and growth. With over €1.5B under management, Partech invests from €200K to €50M in B2B and B2C technologies reshaping industries. Companies backed by Partech have completed more than 21 IPOs and more than 50 strategic M&A transactions valued over $100M. See Partech's current portfolio.

Mark Paterson - Founding team Orange, General Council. Chairman Swiftkey, From Counsel, Sparqa Legal. Chairman of Blink.

Kevin Tumulty - CRO Nexthink. Formerly EMEA VP ServiceNow, SVP Europe CA Technologies. Board member at Blink.

Bill Sexton - CIO BritishGas, Homeserve. Also Board Advisor to Blink.

Hank Vigil - SVP Microsoft, investor in Square, Pinterest, ClassPass, Dopper Labs, Algolia, Onfido

Simon Murdoch - Managing Partner, Episode 1. Angel investor (LoveFilm, Shazam, Betfair, ScanSafe, Zoolpla). Founder Amazon Europe.

Paul McNabb - Managing Partner, Episode 1. Formerly SVP Strategy, Cisco

Richard Brennan - Founding team Orange, SVP Global brand, marketing and products. Chairman View Ranger(acquired)

Jon Bradford - Founder& MD of Techstars London, co-founder of F6S and [tech.eu](http://tech.eu/), advisor to Dubai Future Accelerator. Director of the John Bradfield Centre.

Michel Cassius - CEO Bookatable (acquired by TripAdvisor), Chairman Funcom, Co-founder YoYo games, SVP Microsoft.

Jon Craton - Chairman Rosa Biotech, Chairman Zynstra (acquired by NCR), Cramer Systems (acquired by Amdocs)

Andy Caddy - CTO of The Collective. Formerly CTO Whitbread, CIO & CTO easyJet.

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