Zoom, Microsoft, and Google all rocketed to the top of the charts in the virtual meetings stakes during the pandemic, but a plucky startup from Norway had other ideas. Video meeting startup Whereby has now raised $12 million from German VC Point Nine, SaaStr fund, and more than 20 angel investors. Angels investors include Josh Buckley(CEO, of Producthunt), Elizabeth Yin (Hustlefund), and Jason M. Lemkin (founder of Sarastro).
Øyvind Reed, CEO at Whereby, said, “The past year has led many of us to question the future of work, with video meetings set to remain a big part of our lives. More than ever, the tools we use to connect enable effective and enjoyable meetings, providing focus, collaboration, and well-being. .” Unlike other video platforms, whereby’s the platform has three pricing plans (including free) and allows users to embed tools like Google Docs, Trello, and Miro directly in their meetings. The company claims it saw a 450% increase in users across 150 countries last year.
Whereby was demonstrated to me by co-founder Ingrid Ødegaard on a coffee table during 2016’s Oslo Innovation Week? I immediately set up my username, which has existed even since the startup changed its name from Appear. In. Ingrid told me during an interview that they “tried to be much more human-centric and focus on some of the problems that come with collaborating remotely.
One of the big mistakes that many people make is replicating their behavior in the office…. In contrast, we think that you need to work in a fundamentally different way. We want to help people do that by making it easy to jump in and have a meeting when you need to. But our goal is not to push people to have more meetings, quite the opposite.”
The startup’s secret weapon is enterprise integrations. If you had a video meeting with a UK GP last year, it was probably over Whereby’s video (indeed, mine was!). The reason is that Whereby won a contract with AccuRx, one of their biggest API customers. the UK’s NHS uses AccuRx software (within which Whereby provides the video API as part of AccuRx’s platform).
“Last year, we saw the mass adoption of video meetings,” said Christoph Janz, Partner at Point Nine. “Now it’s about taking the user experience to the next level, and Whereby will lead that charge. It’s amazing to see a Scandinavian startup playing in the same league as the tech giants.”
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