For its 10th anniversary, Bevi is moving to a new space within The Schrafft Center in Charlestown.
The move will more than double the smart water cooler company’s office footprint. Bevi was founded in 2013 by friends Sean Grundy, Eliza Becton and Frank Lee, who wanted to create a water dispenser to reduce plastic use. The company’s smart water coolers had primarily been deployed in offices to offer filtered, flavored and sparkling water to employees.
Click through the above photo gallery to see Bevi's new office.
The Covid-19 pandemic, and the rise of remote work, threatened to upend Bevi, but ultimately led the company to vastly expand its customer base.
Grundy, the company’s chief executive, called these early pandemic days a “phase of desperation” during BostInno’s recent visit to Bevi’s new office. Corporate offices shut down completely and were slow to reopen. Bevi laid off more than 30 employees in March 2020, primarily on the revenue side of the business.
But the company eventually found a way out. Bevi began selling its water coolers beyond offices — to hotels, car dealerships, golf courses, residential buildings and factories.
Bevi has been in The Schrafft Center since 2017, Grundy said, after having previously worked out of Greentown Labs and in a Southie basement across from an industrial pizza kitchen. Grundy said Bevi has grown since it arrived at The Schrafft Center, eventually taking up space on three different floors, including lab and office space.
Grundy said this move and expansion represents a desire to consolidate its team into one space, help them work more efficiently and, for the first time, design an office that would represent their culture.
Bevi’s personal brand
The first thing a visitor’s eyes are drawn to in the Bevi office is a giant mural of a colorful ocean scene featuring green turtles, pink coral and yellow jellyfish. The scene was painted by Artists for Humanity, a Boston-based organization that works with teens on creative pursuits, and displays the company’s mission to keep plastic out of the environment.
The second thing a visitor would encounter is Basil, a three-year-old Maltese-Pomeranian, likely coming over for a few pets. Basil is the official Bevi office dog and belongs to Bevi's employee engagement manager.
In the new office, Basil has a 23,000 square-foot space to patrol. The company’s previous footprint was 10,805 square feet.
Instead of cubicles or dedicated offices, the space has an open floor plan and 18 conference rooms and four small meeting areas.
The office houses several Bevi smart water coolers. Most of the furniture was upcycled or repurposed. Some of the new pieces came from ChopValue, a Charlestown franchise started by Dorchester resident Elaine Chow to turn used chopsticks into furniture and other home goods. MossPure installed a moss wall, comprising nine live moss air filters, and TerraCycle provides a composting program.
The team moved into the new, second-floor office a few weeks ago. Bevi has a hybrid work policy that has Boston-area employees in the office at least two days a week. Grundy said they have a little over 150 employees with about two-thirds in Greater Boston.
Bevi also said it was doing a total gut renovation of its lab space on the first floor and expanding its footprint. Construction of this space will begin in early October.
Looking ahead to the next decade
Last week, Bevi had a party to celebrate its new office and 10-year-anniversary. Grundy admits that over the past decade, stopping to reflect on milestones hasn’t been his strong suit. He said the team is very goal driven and tends to mainly look back when there are mistakes to be learned from.
But last week, he took a moment to think about what has happened over those 10 years.
“(That) night was the first real celebration I remember us doing for a particular milestone in many years,” Grundy said. “And to be honest, I don’t view it as a particularly exciting accomplishment. But it’s exciting when we think of everything that’s changed in the last 10 years. It’s exciting when we think of the fact that we’ve helped customers save over 400 million single-use bottles and cans. It’s exciting to realize we’ve gone from a concept to having thousands of B2B customers all over North America.”
Even though he knows it sounds cliche, Grundy believes “it’s just the beginning for Bevi.”
“Part of that is just a numbers game. The beverage industry is gigantic,” Grundy said. “We could maintain or even increase our growth rate for the next 10 years and still have a lot of room to grow.”
Grundy declined to provide specific revenue numbers, but said the business was growing over 50% year over year.
Over the next decade, Grundy said Bevi will become a household name as they expand not just in offices, but other venues the pandemic prompted them to dive into.
“I think what we’ll see in, not even 10, even in the next five years, is just a massive increase in brand awareness for Bevi among people throughout the country who are seeing Bevi not only in their workspace, but also in their school or in their gym or in their factory,” Grundy said.
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