Behind the Investment: How UpKeep is Reimagining Maintenance and Facilities Management Software

Maintenance and facility workers are the backbone of numerous industries globally, but their jobs are still dominated by paper, pencil, and outdated technology platforms. It is hard to believe that the daily appearance of a new “universal” productivity tool is not changing much for facilities and maintenance workers, right? Unplanned downtime, asset failure, poor facility conditions, and general decreased productivity are still everyday realities. This is why we are proud to welcome UpKeep, a mobile-first workflow solution for maintenance and facility teams, to the Insight portfolio.

Since our first conversation with Ryan, the Founder and CEO, back in early 2017, we knew he was building a platform to meet an important industry need. He spent the entirety of our call walking us through the challenges he faced when working as an engineer at a water purification plant. Even though we were far from Ryan and his plant in California, his retelling of the daily tangled work order process made us feel his frustration all the way in New York City.

But it was not Ryan’s distillation of the problem that made us so excited - it was his solution. Maintenance is a big problem, and as such, other tools have come to market in an attempt to fix this issue. However, they have missed the mark in a very limiting way. Form fits function is a well-articulated aesthetic principle in Architecture – but in maintenance management software? - not so much. Other platforms have only tackled the function piece of the equation and have failed to recognize the form required by the end user. A piece of desktop software that forces a user to manually create a decision tree and enter data hours after completing the real work in the field is not a solution, it is another problem. Maintenance workers are out in the field daily and deserve a flexible, efficient solution that meets their needs.

By building a platform that evolved from the immediate experience of a maintenance engineer, Ryan and the team at UpKeep created a solution where form meets function. Upkeep is mobile first from the ground up because its customers are on their feet in the field and not tethered to a desk. Upkeep’s commitment towards respecting the needs of facility workers was unavoidable in the customer feedback we received as part of our diligence process.

Since its launch in 2017, UpKeep has helped process over 10 million work orders across 2,000+ businesses and 400,000+ individual users. It ranks as the #1 Maintenance Management Software by Capterra, Gartner and G2, and has more 5-star reviews on these platforms than its competitors. Its customers span 61 countries and range from local small businesses to large corporations like Unilever, McDonald’s, and Siemens, and large essential businesses like hospitals and wastewater treatment facilities.

Maintenance and facility workers already have their work cut out for them. It is time for a change. It is time to make their lives easier, not add to their burden. UpKeep is a computerized maintenance management system that lets them get the job done faster than they can say it.