Annrai O’Toole’s Utmost has been snapped up by Beeline

19 Oct 2022

Utmost founders Dan Beck, Annrai O'Toole and Paddy Benson. Image: Utmost

The ‘extended workforce’ software start-up, which has bases in Dublin and the US, has been acquired for an undisclosed sum.

Utmost, the software company co-founded by Irish tech veteran Annrai O’Toole, has been acquired by US business Beeline.

Both companies develop software for managing the ‘extended workforce’, which includes non-employees such as freelancers, temporary staff and vendors.

Florida-headquartered Beeline helps businesses across more than 120 countries and manages more than 30m workers through its platform.

It is hoping that Utmost’s tech can complement its existing offering. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2018, Utmost helps companies to view employee and non-employee workforces by location and reporting structure.

The start-up, which has bases in Dublin and the US, saw an uptick in demand for its services during the pandemic when companies began to rely on hiring external personnel.

Utmost’s Connect platform provides more than 1,000 pre-built connectors to accelerate enterprise and third-party application integrations. Its Front Door platform provides a single place for managers to request workers or work to be done across every channel of sourcing.

In 2021, Utmost raised $21m in a Series B funding round. Two years previously, it raised $11.2m in Series A funding. Its backers include Mosaic Ventures, Acadian Ventures, Alumni Ventures Group, Greylock Partners and Workday Ventures.

The company was founded by O’Toole, along with Paddy Benson and Dan Beck. Together they have experience in senior roles at Workday and Groupon.

O’Toole was also on the founding teams of Iona Technologies and Cape Clear, which was acquired by Workday in 2008.

“The future of work is powered by technology that unlocks the potential of every worker, regardless of classification,” said Doug Leeby, Beeline CEO.

“We have a disciplined history of only acquiring companies that are rightful technology leaders that will deliver further value to our customers.”

The Utmost deal follows Beeline’s 2021 acquisition of JoinedUp, a business that helps companies capture and manage shift-based, high-volume labour.

“Beeline shares our vision of using technology to bring extended workforce management to every level of the organisation and value to every stakeholder of the contingent workforce ecosystem,” said O’Toole, who is CEO of Utmost.

“Beeline’s innovation is not only centred on current workforce challenges but is driving the optimisation of tomorrow’s workforce.”

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Blathnaid O’Dea was a Careers reporter at Silicon Republic until 2024.

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