In the past few months, there hasn't been one conversation I've had about remote work that doesn't include a mention of Hopin, a virtual events platform last valued at $2.1 billion. For a company only a little older than a year, Hopin has a wild growth story. It grew its ARR from $0 to $20 million in nine months. It scooped up two businesses to differentiate its business, including StreamYard for $250 million just this week. And its last financing round left the company's valuation at $2.1 billion. Hopin's growth amid Zoom's fatigue is giving validation to a whole crop of remote-work-focused startups. I see startups in the category sitting in two camps: Either you're betting that users want a more passive way to interact with video or you're betting that users want a more active way to interact with video. This week, for example, I wrote about Rewatch, which creates internal private channels for startups to archive all their videoconferencing meetings. The company is essentially turning live meetings into transcribed documents that employees can sift through on their own time, shifting from synchronous to asynchronous. In contrast, I also covered Teamflow, a platform that wants to give a virtual space to companies to recreate the serendipity and productivity of an office. Unlike Rewatch, Teamflow thinks that employees want there to be more live moments in a distributed world. Both previously in-stealth companies cited Hopin as an example of the need for innovation around how we interact virtually. Rewatch and Teamflow, respectively, see Zoom as a plug-in or competitor – not inspiration. As I mentioned in this week's podcast, it's a dynamic I expect to play out even more over the next few months, as we evolve from a Zoom world to a Zoom alternative world. I want to hear from you, even if you disagree, about what companies in the remote work space should be on my radar. E-mail me at natasha.mascarenhas@techcrunch.com or tweet me @nmasc_ with companies you think should be on my remote-work radar. |
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