Creating collaborative workplaces

Flock was launched in 2014, by serial tech entrepreneur, Bhavin Turakhia, who found that their original internal collaboration tool which had been designed in-house could be a viable messaging product for businesses of all sizes. The company has since grown rapidly to become one of the most valuable players in the workplace communication and collaboration space, with over 32,000 businesses using the messaging platform. “Over the last one year alone, Flock has seen has a growth of 200 per cent in revenue and the daily active users have risen by 64 per cent. We also recently announced the launch of Flockmail + Calendar + Video, products that will help enable workplaces to use Flock for all their work,” says Bhavin Turakhia, Founder & CEO of Flock.

Flock is a suite of messaging and collaboration software for businesses, which enables teams to send messages, share files, video-conference, manage tasks, and centralise access to a variety of tools and services used in the workplace. “Flock provides a secure place for teams to get work done and brings people together, regardless of their location,” remarks Turakhia, adding that Flock also has an open API which allows businesses to integrate their own tools easily with the platform. “Ultimately, Flock helps build a culture of transparency and speed within teams, which translates into time and cost savings in the modern workplace. I consider Flock to be the best-in-class messaging service because it is designed for both technology adept as well as non-technically inclined users. While the competitors have typically leaned on early-adopters of technology to grow, at Flock, we believe that technology should enable all workplaces and business functions equally,” he adds.

The startup has a strong global presence with countries like the US, India, the UK, Canada, Australia and mainland Europe leading with the greatest share of its user-base. “Flock is used by over 32000 businesses of all sizes around the world. “Flock finds applications within every business function and organisation size. It finds rapid adoption by teams in non-technical business functions as well, owing to its self-explanatory user interface and easy learning curve,” remarks Turakhia.

The startup is investing both in people as well as in technology. “While our product and engineering teams will work to develop and maintain our products at a rapid pace, our investments in our growing go-to-market teams in India and the US will enable businesses to find us and start using our products as seamlessly as possible,” he shares, informing that he has committed an investment of US$ 25 million over the next 18 months. “We are also growing our sales and marketing teams at Flock’s Mumbai and Boston offices. Flock is expanding its product offerings to cater to an even greater variety of businesses, and it’ll do so through several innovative go-to-market strategies to be unveiled over the coming months,” states Turakhia.

The company is creating a technology that will underlie how work is done in the workplace of the future. Turakhia reminds that most modern businesses today rely on two key channels of communication – email and instant messaging, where the latter is commonly through personal messaging accounts over WhatsApp or iMessage. “While email is good for sending digital memos to colleagues and external collaborators, it’s a purely asynchronous channel of conversation and hasn’t changed fundamentally in close to twenty years. Meanwhile, personal instant messaging is not secure and typically lacks a work context, apart from limitations on group size and administrative control,” he says, adding that Flock exists to address the need for user-friendly and secure channels for text, voice and video communication in modern businesses.

“Our vision at Flock is to make every moment matter. No matter the products or services that we make, our goal remains to make people feel fulfilled and successful at work. We aim to make every moment spent at work richer in value through a culture of speed and transparency, as well as providing tangible savings in time and effort,” affirms Turakhia, pointing out that the success of Flock will ultimately be defined by how successful and professionally fulfilled its users are through the use of our products and services, as well as with every interaction with the company and the brand.