Digital employee experience management provider Nexthink SA announced a hefty $180 million late-stage round of funding today as it looks to cash in on the remote work trend that has gripped enterprises over the last year.

Permira, through its Growth Opportunities Fund, led the Series D round, which brings Nexthink’s valuation to $1.1 billion. Also participating were existing investors that included Highland Europe and Index Ventures.

Nexthink, which was based in Switzerland before moving its headquarters to Boston last year, started out as a network security firm but in recent years has expanded its scope to cover the entire employee experience. Its DEX platform is used to monitor company networks and devices to ensure everything runs smoothly and improve employees’ interactions and satisfaction with the tools they use to get their work done.

The platform installs a widget known as a Collector on each device, be it a laptop, smartphone, tablet or desktop computer, that monitors hundreds of different metrics. It collects data on everything from performance issues and policy breaches to what software is being used. It analyzes this data to identify and also anticipate problems that might occur, and provide a quick suggestion so the employee can fix the issue themselves — or if that isn’t possible, send the data to an information technology team that can help.

The idea is to help workers get more work done. Employees should get a quick response if they’re experiencing a problem, allowing them get back to work as fast as possible, while IT teams can benefit from a reduction in the number of calls asking for help.

The company saw a big opportunity for its software with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic that forced thousands of workers across the world to work from home, and in mid-2020 it released a new Remote Worker experience solution specifically for them. It also announced a new Experience Optimization platform targeted at proactive support teams.

Nexthink’s software has proven its worth. The company said it added 180 new customers in 2020 to reach 1,000 worldwide, including 200 of the Global 2000. It now serves more than 11 million employees globally and has annual recurring revenue of more than $100 million. Nexthink has 700 employees of its own and is planning to add more than 200 new hires by the end of this year.

Nexthink Chief Executive Officer Pedro Bados said he sees a big opportunity to help enterprises redefine the way they provide digital workplaces for their employees.

“The rise in remote working has dramatically accelerated the need for Digital Employee Experience, as a big part of all the interactions that employees have with companies are now digital,” Bados said.

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said it’s good for employees when companies pay more attention to the usability of their working environment.

“With the pandemic having dramatically shifted the work environment of employees from the office to the home, there is a new opportunity to refine that space and startups are jumping on that chance,” Mueller said. “Nexthink is one of them, and with the its sizable Series D funding it should be positioned well to capitalize on the employee experience trend.”

Image: Nexthink