On a Friday night back in 2010, startup fever was catching on and Perttu Ojansuu, the co-founder and CEO of Happeo was throwing around business ideas with a group of fellow AaltoES-members. The Google-Microsoft ecosystem battle had not yet boiled over into an all-out war, but the first signs of corporations opting for Gmail instead of Office Exchange had begun to emerge. Perttu and his friends, who were heavy Google ecosystem users themselves, realized the business opportunity in supporting enterprise clients in the migration that gave rise to the multi-award-winning consultancy Gapps. In 2016 the company launched Happeo (formerly Universe), a slick digital SaaS-workplace for G Suite enterprise users, which finally spun off of Gapps this spring.
Big organizations tend to be terrible at internal communications, just ask anyone who’s ever tried using SharePoint in a productive way. Company information is spread across several applications, and as the applications usually aren’t connected to one another, employees struggle to locate the right information at the right time. Happeo solves the problem: it compiles different enterprise applications into one, beautiful and easy-to-use UX, and enables integration of other corporate softwares such as CRM and HR systems. User experience has been the main cornerstone of Happeo’s product development and design. “There is so much bad enterprise software out there because it’s usually designed for decision makers instead of the actual users,” Perttu says.
When ecosystems wage a furious war over market share and do everything in their power to create a strategic lock-down, the end user needs are often neglected. According to Perttu, “large enterprises typically have Microsoft as their basic platform, but they’d like to add Zoom, Slack or other point solutions in the mix as well. Our vision is total integration, where employees can work with any solution regardless of political ecosystem tensions.” Happeo compiles a customized stream of communications on the user’s front page. “Our goal is is to enable our users to get things done.”
In July, Happeo raised $8m for their seed round with Gapps, Maki.vc, Vendep and DN Capital as investors. “Maki is truly founder-friendly investor and their values are aligned with ours. Ilkka (Kivimäki) has one of the best experiences in Finland to coach startups for growth, whereas Pirkka (Palomäki) has extensive enterprise software experience from his time with F-Secure”, Perttu says. With the help of their seed funding, the Happeo team is speeding up the integration development and turning their sight towards both Europe and the U.S.
Ready to make history with Happeo? Let’s!
