From Events to Experiences: Announcing Hopin’s Series D

When we founded Hopin in 2019, our ambition was to make it easier for people to form meaningful connections—regardless of physical distance.

As we saw it, arbitrary barriers like distance, health, or a lack of resources should not define a person’s ability to access experiences and make connections.

So the early Hopin Team built and launched a product to tackle this problem: a virtual event platform called Hopin.

Two years later, we are proud to say Hopin has become synonymous with virtual events—a category that we have played an indispensable role in carving out.

From our customers, we learned the power and efficacy of a solution like this—as a way to bring people together around shared experiences from all parts of the world.

With the Covid pandemic, the value of a product like ours became obvious, enabling people and businesses to carry on, host gatherings, and facilitate community and connection, even in a time of lockdowns and social distancing.

But, more, the experience of the pandemic fundamentally altered our assumptions and expectations around how we live and work. 

As a society, we're increasingly aware that the world will not return to some pre-Covid status quo. Instead, our future will be one in which people can partake in the experiences that matter to them—wherever they are.

In other words, it’s a future aligned to the initial vision of Hopin.

And it is a future that Hopin is eager to help shape and define—in ways that meet the constructive, empathic, human values that underpin the idea of connection.

That’s why I am pleased to announce that Hopin has raised $450M in Series D funding, co-led by new investors Arena Holdings and Altimeter Capital, with participation from new investors Adam Street Partners, Untitled Investments, and XN, in addition to existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, DFJ Growth, General Catalyst, GIC, IVP, Northzone, Salesforce Ventures, Slack Fund, Temasek, and Tiger Global.

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‍Accelerating the expansion of our multi-product experiences platform

In my note announcing our Series C earlier this year, I described our intention to evolve from a virtual event solution to a multi-product experiences platform.

That begins with Hopin Events. We have spent the last many months expanding our immersive, interactive events product and made a series of strategic acquisitions to accelerate our innovation.

• We acquired Boomset, the leader in onsite event technology, and expanded from virtual event software to an all-in-one event management platform, inclusive of a virtual venue, video production studio, event marketing tools, and onsite solutions.
  

• We made investments in event marketing, acquiring Attendify and advancing development on key products such as Audience CRM, designed to centralize event and attendee data; and Campaign Manager, which will provide event communication tools.
  

• We combined the powerful yet intuitive video production capabilities of StreamYard with our event platform, unveiling a video production Studio that allows organizers to easily produce professional live and recorded video content for their Hopin events.
  

• We launched our Free plan, a subscription tier that gives everyone the ability to host compelling, inspiring events on the Hopin platform.
  

• We unveiled a first-of-its-kind integration with GoFundMe, the fundraising platform, as a way to enable event managers to link awareness to action and to drive tangible social impact during Hopin events.
  

However, we believe events—whether virtual, in-person, or hybrid—are only one mode of connection. Shared experiences encompass multiple ways in which people and organizations can reach and engage audiences.

To that end, we have doubled down on innovation in video technology, the format that is increasingly the lifeblood of online connection, while also advancing our Content suite of products.

In addition to our acquisition of video hosting service Streamable, we unveiled an enterprise-level offering of StreamYard to enable organizations to scale high-quality video creation and distribution.

And we have been hard at work on several other projects that we look forward to sharing soon.

At the same time, we have focused on building a world-class team. High on the list of the most mind-boggling developments in the last year has been to watch our team grow from a few dozen in mid-2020 to north of 800 Hopineers today, working from 47 countries.

To support that growth, we have made crucial investments in building a rewarding workplace culture—one that can sustain a fully remote workforce. To that end, we were selected as one of the 2021 Fast Company Best Workplaces for Innovators.

But the alpha and omega of our work are our customers. Today, Hopin is proud to partner with more than 100,000 organizations from around the world, helping bring together millions of people every month.‍

Looking ahead, our intention is to put this latest round of funding to work—in order to accelerate expansion of the Hopin platform, invest in the development of multi-product platform technologies, and build new product suites.

All of this work is oriented towards imagining and innovating the technologies that will unlock opportunities for meaningful connection and community for all.

Ever since we shipped the first version of our virtual event software in 2019, the Hopin vision has been one of expanding access and building connection. This has been the through-line of all of our work—from virtual events to all events, from all events to all experiences.

And our work continues.