WorkBuzz, a Milton Keynes company that sells employee listening software, announced on 13 October 2026 that it had acquired Hive, a Newcastle-based employee engagement platform used by commercial, public sector and not-for-profit organisations across the UK.
Terms were not disclosed. Hive customers will keep the same service and the same support team, and WorkBuzz said any move to combine customer activity would be planned with customers and announced well in advance. Hive's website now carries a banner saying it is a WorkBuzz company and that service continues as normal.
Over time, Hive customers are expected to get access to WorkBuzz's AI-based tools, including Perspectives and People Science AI, and Dialogue, a recently launched product for gathering and acting on feedback from frontline staff.
What Hive built
Hive was founded in 2016, according to WorkBuzz's lead investor YFM Equity Partners, and sells a cloud platform for employee surveys alongside a people science consultancy. Organisations use it to run baseline, pulse and targeted surveys, collect always-on anonymous feedback, run peer-to-peer recognition and track the actions managers take in response. Hive has added AI-generated engagement reports and offers coaching and consultancy through a professional services team.
YFM said Hive supports more than 160 organisations and employs 27 specialists who work on survey design, data analysis and insight for HR and people teams. Hive's investor Maven Capital Partners has named River Island, Hermes, Travelodge, Tarmac and Northumbria Police among its clients.
Chief executive John Ryder leads the company. Before Hive he was head of innovation at Visualsoft, a North East e-commerce agency, and he has more than 15 years of experience in digital marketing and technology, according to Maven.
“Hive has built something we genuinely admire - strong customer relationships, deep employee listening expertise and a team that shares our belief that every employee deserves to be heard.”
The funding
Hive raised its money mainly from regional and venture capital trust funds managed by Maven Capital Partners. In April 2019 it raised £1.2 million (about $1.6 million) in a round led by Maven, which put in £350,000 through the North East Development Capital Fund. Ryder said at the time that Hive had grown quickly over the previous three years on very little capital.
In late 2020 the North East Development Capital Fund co-led a further £1.75 million (about $2.3 million) round, investing £500,000 alongside £1 million from Maven's venture capital trusts and £250,000 from existing shareholders. Maven said Hive had doubled its revenue in the preceding 12 months. A £500,000 (about $700,000) round followed in 2021, split equally between the fund and the government-backed Future Fund.
Across those three reported rounds Hive raised about £3.45 million, or roughly $4.5 million. Neither company said how much WorkBuzz paid or what Hive's investors received.
Why WorkBuzz is buying
Steven Frost founded WorkBuzz in 2018. YFM said the company now works with more than 350 clients in sectors such as construction, retail, hospitality and healthcare, covering close to one million employees. WorkBuzz said the deal would help it reach more public sector, emergency services and education organisations, areas where Hive already has customers.
Frost said Hive had strong customer relationships, deep expertise in employee listening and a team that shares WorkBuzz's views, and that the combined company could help more organisations listen better. Ryder said WorkBuzz was the right partner for Hive, its team and its customers, and that joining would give Hive more ways to help clients hear their people.
The deal moves WorkBuzz closer to its stated ambition of helping 10 million employees share their voice by 2030.
A buyer with private equity backing
WorkBuzz has raised money to fund this kind of expansion. UKTN reported that it raised around £10 million (about $13 million) across several rounds between 2021 and 2023, including a £6.2 million round in which Mercia Asset Management and Foresight Group took part. In April 2025 YFM Equity Partners led a further £4 million (about $5.3 million), taking its total investment in the company to £8.8 million (about $11.7 million).
At that point WorkBuzz said its annual recurring revenue had grown from £2.8 million in 2023 to £5 million (about $6.7 million) by March 2025, and that it planned to enter new markets and add AI features. YFM portfolio director Sophie Tainton said then that the team had shown it could execute an ambitious plan.
Dealroom described the deal as part of a wider consolidation in the UK employee engagement market, where providers are combining customer bases and pooling investment to build AI-driven feedback tools.
