Mark Adams
One of the fast-growing video conferencing tools, Whereby, has just raised $12 million from a number of backers including Point Nine, Jason M. Lemkin’s SaaStr fund and a group of more than 20 angel investors.
Whereby is a Norwegian-based video conferencing app, similar to Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
Formerly known as Appear.in, the real unique selling point is that you are given your own personalised URL for meetings, which stays the same through your subscription, making it easy to remember and send to different guests without the hassle of multiple logins, passwords and problems entering a call that delays millions of video calls per day.
Customers also enjoy the browser-based service which means there is no downloading of apps to begin a video call and the meeting just opens upon the click of a button.
Whereby offers three pricing plans, including a free option, and allows users to embed popular tools such as Google Docs, Trello and Miro directly in their meetings. In 2020, Whereby saw a 450% increase in users across 150 countries in the last year, driven by the popularity of remote video calls during the pandemic.
The investors of this round include founders of companies like Miro, Typeform and GoCardless, founding members of Spotify, as well as several successful serial entrepreneurs and early-stage investors.
Some other popular features of Whereby include the ability to do screen-sharing, lock rooms for privacy and protection, record meetings and do web chat.
Whereby have implemented a number of very advanced protocols to maximise security during calls. This includes any web chats and recorded videos being downloaded upon the termination of a call, so they are not stored on Whereby’s server or available to any third parties, they effectively disappear at the end of the call.
Furthermore, Whereby uses an encryption connect (HTTPS using TLS) and a dedicated server for calls (not a shared server) to add a further layer of encryption for any information, calls, recordings or data that you share between guests. Streams will always be encrypted in transit, decrypted and re-encrypted when passing through video routers.
All servers are located globally, adhering to strict security measures, preventing any eavesdropping or interruption of the video or audio streams, something that has plagued Zoom in the last year, known as ‘Zoom bombing.’
“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 be leading that charge. It’s amazing to see a Scandinavian startup playing in the same league as the tech giants – and we’re very excited to be a part of their journey.”
