Why #CollabTech Is the Future of B2B

We’ve seen the collaboration hype. Real-time docs. Slack channels. Asynchronous productivity. Great — for teams. But what about work between businesses?

Here’s the problem: business doesn’t stop at the company firewall. Most of today’s so-called “collaboration” tools are designed for individuals inside one company. They’re great at helping your team move faster. But what happens when you need to work with another department or even another business?

Different systems. Different contracts. Different compliance requirements. Suddenly, it’s spreadsheets, email threads, shared drives, and confusion.

That’s why we’re coining a new category: #CollabTech.

They are not collaboration tools for teams but collaboration platforms built for companies working with companies.

A Figma moment — across industries

For those unfamiliar: Figma is a browser-based design tool that lets multiple people work simultaneously on the same interface or graphic — like Google Docs but for UI/UX design. No downloads, no file chaos, just one live source of truth. You can watch a designer, a developer, and a client working together — live — in the same file.

Figma won against other Tools like Sketch because it understood this simple truth: design doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens across roles, companies, and geographies. Developers, product managers, agencies, and clients—all in one file, with clear permissions, versioning, and accountability—that’s #CollabTech.

Now imagine the same principle applied to:

• Real estate transactions
• Insurance onboarding
• B2B lending
• Healthcare data exchange

We don’t need more tools. We need shared platforms.

In the real world, B2B collaboration is still painfully manual.

Data is siloed. Trust is low. Access is restricted.

Everyone is reinventing the wheel — again and again. CollabTech platforms fix this by:

• Creating neutral ground for structured workflows
• Defining clear access rights across companies
• Ensuring compliance by design (GDPR, KYC, audit trails)
• Allowing businesses to plug in securely without rebuilding everything

Collaboration is not just handshakes and referrals. It’s infrastructure.

We learned this at our real estate agency Brixel. If you want two parties to collaborate — a seller and a buyer, a bank and a broker — you can’t just throw a tool at them and hope for magic. You need to design the collaboration.

That means understanding pain points on all sides, setting the rules of engagement, and making the experience feel simple, even when the logic underneath is complex.

CollabTech isn’t software. It’s infrastructure for collaboration.

Why now?

APIs are mature, cloud security is strong, identity standards are improving, and, most importantly, businesses are finally ready to work differently.

We’re seeing early signals everywhere:

• Platforms where banks and real estate agents share data
• Legal tech that lets multiple firms manage contracts in one flow
• Logistics systems that synchronize across supply chains

These are not features. They are foundations.

They will also define how the next generation of B2B platforms will be built. We’re already seeing #CollabTech platforms emerge:

• Figma (design collaboration across companies)
• Juro (contract collaboration between legal teams and clients)
• Skribble (E-signatures bridging companies securely)
• Stripe Connect (multi-party financial infrastructure)
• Gridwork (real estate agents and banks on shared rails)

OK, the last one is our company. You got me (-;

This Is Where the Builders Come In

We believe it’s time to stop hacking together tools and start building real collaboration into the architecture.

Across companies. Across industries.

CollabTech is not a trend. It’s a shift in how value is created across companies. The question is no longer whether businesses can collaborate—it’s how structured, secure, and scalable that collaboration is. So, if you’re building tools that connect businesses — not just people — you’re already in this category.

Welcome to #CollabTech.

Written by Michael Wiedemann, Co-Founder of Gridwork and Brixel. If you’re building in this space, let’s talk. Collaboration is no longer optional — it’s the unfair advantage.