Mapping “The Future of Work” Startup & Investor ecosystem

Like lots of people these days, I enjoy spending time thinking about & investing in companies shaping “the Future of Work”.

For that reason, I keep getting asked by my investor friends whether I have any cool lists of startups for them or insights I’d be happy to share.

I normally reply by sending a mere list of c.10 cool companies “to watch” off the top of my head and then pointing towards this excellent recent post by Merci Victoria Grace, which does a fantastic job at mapping Workplace Collaboration startups worldwide, or this one by CB Insights, mapping startups enabling Remote Work.

Since I’d love to have something more ‘personal’ to send back, and since the current pandemic is turning “the Future” of Work as we perceived it until a few months ago into “the Present” somewhat quicker — I thought I’d dig a bit deeper, to come up with a big list of unique companies & ideas for everyone interested in the wider space, adding a couple categories to Merci’s & CB Insight’s maps and adding investors to the mix.

My plan is to keep updating this post on a regular basis, so that it can become the go-to piece for the sector. If you’re building a company that you think should be included, let me know!

Let’s go.

1. Startups shaping “The Future of Work”

Disclaimer 1: My definition of Future of Work is immensely broad, as it includes anything that makes working easier, regardless of whether your company:

• is fully remote.
• has physical offices only.
• mixes physical offices with remote teams.
• has employees who can (or need to) ‘work from home’.

Disclaimer 2: Many of the startups listed sit across multiple categories. I chose one for each for simplicity.

Disclaimer 3: This is not an attempt at including every single company in these categories — I’m sure I’m missing loads of them — but rather a selection of the independent, private, and usually…