Work Week | The Opposite Is Happening

| Work Management: ClickUp | Virtual Events: Welcome, Slido | Omnichannel: IMImobile | People Operations: Hibob |

Stowe Boyd

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GigaOm

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5 min readDec 18, 2020

Quote of the Moment

You would think that in a very crowded market, a new entrant would have trouble gaining traction. But the opposite is happening.

| David Sacks (Craft Ventures, formerly CEO Yammer), commenting on ClickUp’s $100 million raise

Work Management

ClickUp hits $1 billion valuation in $100M Series B raise | Lucas Matney reports on the work management vendor’s newest round:

The company has seen plenty of growth in the past several months to justify that new unicorn status, including doubling the amount of users to 2 million. In a press release the company also detailed it had grown revenue nine times over since the beginning of the year.
This latest $100 million round was led by Canadian firm Georgian with participation from Craft Ventures, which led the startup’s $35 million Series A back in June. The high valuation showcases just how eager investors are to find winners in the productivity software space, which has seen massive customer gains as an industry this year, partially as a result of shifting corporate attitudes toward working from home.
ClickUp is aiming to further capitalize as it scales its team and product. The company of 200 has doubled in size since its last raise and is hoping to double again in the next several months, CEO Zeb Evans tells TechCrunch.
ClickUp sells productivity software, but their main sell has been tying several products in that space into a single platform, aiming to reduce the number of tools their customers use. The team has recently begun integrating tools like email into their platform so that users can complete workflows inside the product.

Sounds like ClickUp is trying to become a business operating system, like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Will be featured in my upcoming Work Management report series.

Virtual Events

Welcome launches to help companies stage Apple keynote-style virtual events | Paul Sawers reports on the rapid maturation of the virtual events market, with Welcome as a new example:

Welcome emerges from stealth after just seven months in development and three months testing with beta customers. Welcome CEO and cofounder Roberto Ortiz said the company aims to allow anyone to “throw an experience that feels like an Apple keynote.”

So, Welcome is targeting very high-end events:

The likes of Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and other companies with endless resources may find the transition to online events relatively painless — but for those without sufficient expertise, technology, or budget, trying to replicate quality physical events virtually is no easy task. This year has consequently been monumental for virtual events startups, with social distancing measures and remote work forcing some of the world’s biggest conferences to embrace livestreams and other virtual alternatives.

And investors think there is a market:

In the run-up to its public launch, Welcome has secured $12 million in funding from notable investors that include Kleiner Perkins, Y Combinator, Kapor Capital, and WIN (Webb Investor Network).

And this is just the most recent in the exploding virtual events market:

Last week, London-based virtual events company Hopin raised $125 million at a $2.1 billion valuation, just over a year after it was founded. Hopin has also grown from eight employees and 5,000 users to 200 employees and 3.5 million users during the eight-month pandemic period. Mountain View, California-based Run The World raised two rounds of funding this year, including a $10.8 million series A round in the midst of the global lockdown. And India’s Airmeet closed its seed round in March, followed by a $12 million series A round not long after.

…

Cisco has Announced Intent to Purchase Slido | Cisco adds Q&A-style polling for virtual meetings and events:

Slido provides a best-in-class audience engagement functionality that enables higher levels of user engagement before, during and after meetings and events.
In today’s work environment, it has never been more important to connect and collaborate, no matter how, where or when we work together, in real-time or anytime. That is why we are focused on creating a Webex experience that’s 10X better than in-person interactions.
With Slido’s technology, Cisco will integrate even more insights into the Cisco Webex Platform to help participants work smarter and be more productive whenever and from wherever they connect, working in-sync with the apps they use. Soon meeting owners will be able to: Create engaging and dynamic participant experiences with dynamic Q&As and polls using graphic visual representation; get real-time critical insights before, during and after meetings and events, from all-hands and townhalls to conferences and training sessions; Obtain inclusive feedback with every voice heard; and give presenters the confidence they are connecting in a meaningful way with their audience.

Buying a feature? Or a bunch of customers?

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Omnichannel Communications

Cisco announced acquisition of IMImobile, as part of an effort to expand into omnichannel communications:

IMImobile’s cloud communications software and services to further Cisco’s vision to create a comprehensive Customer Experience as a Service (CXaaS) offer that gives businesses the ability to deliver consistently enjoyable and rich customer experiences.
Together with IMImobile, Cisco will be able to provide an end-to-end customer interaction management solution, and the ability to drive faster and smarter interactions and orchestration through the customer’s channel of choice.

A good fit, since IMImobile (a product whose name should be changed) will add a great deal to Cisco’s Webex Contact Center.

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People Operations

I haven’t had a chance to dig deeply into Hibob, a ‘system of engagement’ for a company and ‘not the old school system of record’. One indication is raising $70 million last week from a stellar collection of investors:

The Series B is being led by SEEK and Israel Growth Partners, with participation also from Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Eight Roads Ventures, Arbor Ventures, Presidio Ventures, Entree Capital, Cerca Partners and Perpetual Partners, the same group that also backed Hibob in its last round (a Series A extension) in 2019. It has raised $124 million to date.

A second indication that I stumbled upon (I haven’t had a demo yet), is the very modern concepts in the platform, like Hibob’s non-binary gender identification:

I need a demo, obviously.

I am a great believer in great design as a force multiplier for any sort of software, and ‘Human Resource Management’ is in need of a rethink based on consumer software aesthetics.

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