Icebreaker is now Gatheround
Today, Icebreaker is re-launching as Gatheround, with the mission of helping communities, companies, and teams feel a sense of togetherness and belonging, no matter where their people are. Becoming Gatheround reflects our core commitment to bringing people together to forge deeper relationships and build stronger communities and teams.
We have some very exciting news to share!
Just over two years ago, Lisa, Alexander, and I built the first version of Icebreaker with a kernel of an idea — that there had to be a more authentic way to connect with others online than staring at a dull slide deck and listening to a monologue, or trying to start a conversation with a sea of tiny faces in squares.
We initially designed Icebreaker for connecting people who’d never met. The first versions of Icebreaker could best be described as “virtual speed dating.”
We soon noticed that people were using the product for far more than speed dating. It was being used for team building, happy hours, weekly reflections, all-hands meetings, and so much more.
And while breaking the ice worked in all of these settings, it was more of a feature than the overall purpose. What hosts really wanted was to bring their people together as a group, in a way that was both wildly fun and deeply meaningful. And they wanted to do this whether they were meeting for the first time or the 100th.
We realized that icebreakers were just the tip of the iceberg, and that we needed a new name that reflected this.
So today, we’re re-launching as Gatheround, with the mission of helping communities, companies, and teams feel a sense of togetherness and belonging, no matter where their people are.
Becoming Gatheround reflects our core commitment to bringing people together to forge deeper relationships and build stronger communities and teams. Gatheround is built for gatherers — the often-unsung heroes who connect people both personally and professionally.
Lisa, Alexander, and I are all former community organizers. We have a passion for bringing people together in meaningful ways. We know how important the work of gathering people is, and we’re excited to provide new tools to make it easier and more fun.
In the past year, in addition to 1-on-1 matching, we’ve launched features like small group matching, group share, and our YouTube video player that make it easier for teams to bond, share, learn, and (of course) have fun together. These features reflect the generous feedback of our thousands of partners. And as always, time-saving tools like smart matching and ready-to-run event templates take the stress and guesswork out of hosting.
Communities and the workplace were already rapidly moving online before COVID; that transition has only massively accelerated. And while we all understand the immense benefits of remote and hybrid work (we’re a fully remote team ourselves!), there’s a deep concern about how to stay meaningfully connected.
This isn’t just a problem for leaders, who understand that building connection and trust is essential for their organizations to thrive. It’s a problem for everyone. We hope to play a meaningful role in solving what is really a growing societal crisis around isolation and loneliness.
If you haven’t hosted an event in a while (or ever!), we’d be thrilled for you to host a gathering on Gatheround with your community or team.
Thanks so much for being a part of this journey with us. We look forward to being the glue that keeps you connected.
Perry Rosenstein
CEO, Gatheround
A special thank you to the people who made this possible: Micah Daigle, for leading our rebrand strategy; Duy Dao, for leading our visual identity work; and Kristina Malsberger, for leading our verbal identity work. And huge props to our lead product designer, Brenna Marketello, and our entire product engineering team for bringing the brand to life in the product.
