HoneyBook Hits Unicorn Status Helping Freelancers Manage Small Businesses

HoneyBook Founders (Company PR Kit)

Israeli startup HoneyBook which offers a platform for the financial management of small businesses and for self-employed people has hit unicorn status with a valuation of $1.1 billion. The company reached this milestone when it completed a $155 million Series D financing round led by Durable Capital Partners.

Israel is not known as Startup Nation for nothing. And now Startup Nation may be known as Unicorn nation. A unicorn is a startup, which is still a privately held company that has already reached a billion dollar plus valuation. HoneyBook is already the tenth Israeli startup to hit this mark since the start of 2021.

If this trend keeps up they may need to come up with a new term for a billion dollar startup. They are called unicorns because such companies are rare and the animal is a mythical being. Now unicorns are not so rare anymore, at least not in Israel.

Team HoneyBook (Company PR Kit)

Founded in 2013 by CEO Oz Alon, CTO Dror Shimoni and Chief of Product Naama Alon, HoneyBook calls itself the leading client experience and financial management platform for independent service-based business owners. By combining tools like billing, contracts and client communication, HoneyBook helps business owners get organized so they can provide top-tier service at every step.

HoneyBook boasts that it offers a huge opportunity in that service-based businesses are the largest demographic in the freelance workforce at more than 30 million Americans. The company, has booked more than $3 billion in business on its platform. HoneyBook is based in San Francisco and funded by Norwest Venture Partners, Aleph, Hillsven Capital, Vintage Investment Partners, Citi Ventures, Our Crowd, Durable Capital Partners LP, Tiger Global Management, Battery Ventures, Zeev Ventures, and 01 Advisors.

HoneyBook Payments (Company PR Kit)

In spite of the Covid crisis, HoneyBook affiliates booked more than $1 billion in business on the platform in the past nine months and the company doubled its membership on the SaaS platform and tripled its annual recurring revenue over the past 12 months.
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Today we announced a $155M Series D. The investment will further our mission to empower independent service-based businesses with the tools to be successful doing what they love. ????

Thank you to our #HoneyBook members, partners, team & the community! https://t.co/nHTlXt1HlI

— HoneyBook (@honeybook) May 4, 2021

Oz Alon said, “Clients now expect streamlined communication, seamless payments and the same level of exceptional service online that they were used to receiving from business owners in person. We’re proud to have helped independent service-based businesses meet the demands of a rapidly changing, digital-first world. Amid a year of uncertainty, small business owners exemplified innovation and an unrelenting passion for their craft.”

HoneyBook explained that in the past year, the pandemic accelerated two existing macro trends: the growth of the independent workforce and the digitization of small businesses. The way consumers interact with small businesses has fundamentally changed, it states, necessitating the increased adoption of digital tools to support their growth.
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At the same time, people continued leaving the traditional workforce to pursue their passion. In 2020, sweeping corporate layoffs driven by the pandemic resulted in an even greater surge in entrepreneurship, as more new business applications were filed in the U.S. than at any other time since 2005.

Calling the situation terrifying, Alon described how his firm helped small businesses get through the Coronavirus crisis to Tech Crunch. “We knew that our customers’ businesses were going to be impacted dramatically,” he said, “and would impact ours at the same time dramatically. We had to make some hard decisions.”

“Our members who saw a hit in demand went out and found demand in another thing,” Oz added.