Why we raised a $30M Series B

Update: Since this fundraise in October 2019, we have since upsized our Series B with $28.75 million, bringing our total funding to $73 million. Co-led by Sequoia and Coatue, the Series B Plus round included investments from Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst, Slack Fund, Jay Simons of Atlassian, and Dylan Fields of Figma. For more details, read the Forbes exclusive: Why All-Star Investors Think $350 Million Video Startup Loom Is The Next Big Thing In Remote Work Tech.

This round saw continued participation from Kleiner Perkins and Dylan Field of Figma. We’re also excited to welcome some new investors to the Loom family–Instagram’s co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and Front’s CEO and co-founder, Mathilde Collin. We couldn’t be more grateful for their support. 🙏

You might be asking yourself why we’re raising again after closing our Series A in late 2018. It’s a great question, so let’s break it down.

That’s right, more video. Here’s three reasons we believe why:

1. Video is simply a better way to communicate
We can talk 6 times faster than we can type. Our brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text. People remember information better when it’s watched and heard versus reading a message because our brain’s processing power is 50% dedicated to visual input. Those are facts.

2. We’re more comfortable with video than ever before
Video is everywhere in our personal lives. From FaceTime to Stories to TikTok, it’s quickly become a standard way people communicate and express ourselves with friends and family. Video is also everywhere in our work lives. From Google Meet to Zoom, the rise of remote and distributed work means we’re more reliant on real-time video to stay connected in the workplace.

3. We don’t need real-time all the time
The rise of chat and video conferencing have made real-time communication via text and video more accessible than ever before. It’s become the norm, but should it be? Despite their obvious benefits, we still all suffer from the interruptive nature of constant pings and time wasted in unnecessary meetings. Not to mention taking meetings and fielding chat messages before the start and after the end of an already long work day.

We’re big believers in the benefits of asynchronous communication. Those benefits are amplified when the medium is video. So, here’s what we’re doing about it.

‍We’re making Loom everything you need it to be

We believe Loom is a more effective way of communicating at work with quick, instantly shareable videos that help you get your message across. Already, more than 15 million minutes of videos are shared and watched every month by more than 1.8 million people across 50,000 companies with Loom’s screen recorder. But, we still have so much left to do to help our users be more effective communicators with their co-workers and their customers.

First things first, we’re doubling-down our investment in the foundations of Loom. We’re in a better position than we’ve ever been to build a product that’s reliable, performant and delightful to use. In addition, there are three other major areas of investment we’re committed to making progress on in the next 6-12 months. Hear directly from my Co-founder, Vinay, and I what’s in store.

1. Going mobile and getting more connected
We’re also investing in making sure Loom is everywhere you work with an iOS app on the way and Android coming soon after. You’ll also see us integrate with more of the tools you use every day to get work done, making sure Loom fits in seamlessly with your existing workflows.

2. Supporting the needs of teams, not just individuals
The next phase for Loom sees us building for companies with an emphasis on security and collaboration. We’re currently working on centralized storage and curation, richer insights and reporting, custom branding, and enhanced administrative controls. We’re rolling out early access soon and plan to launch publicly in early 2020.

3. Addressing your top requests
Lastly, we’re excited to finally build more of the features you’ve been asking for, including a robust video editor with transcriptions, blurring, video uploads, and merging Looms. We’ll also be pushing innovation of video itself by highlighting key areas and auto editing videos to be more engaging.

Enhancing work communication and bringing back its humanity is an ambitious mission, but one that we’re determined to realize. Our product must solve real problems for our customers and deliver immense value in doing so. Achieving this is hard, extremely hard. That’s why we’re delighted to have the support and advice of some of the best people in the business in our corner.

We thought you’d like to hear directly from our investors why they are partnering with Loom, so here are some of their thoughts. They used Loom of course.

Since raising our Series A in late 2018, we’ve built out a strong leadership team to chart the next chapter, including:

• Nicole Obst – Head of Growth

  Nicole was formerly Head of Web Growth at Dropbox.

• Andy Gale – Head of Operations

  Prior to Loom, Andy was a tech and consumer investor at Citigroup and Taconic Capital.

• Joshua Goldenberg – Head of Design

  Joshua is the former Head of Design at Slack and Palantir.

• Matt Hodges – Head of Marketing

  Before joining Loom, Matt was the first marketing hire at Intercom and an early Atlassian employee.

The entire Loom team couldn’t be more thrilled and thankful for the continued support of our amazing customers – we wouldn’t be here without them.

We have so much to do. It’s cliche, but it’s the truth – we really are just getting started. We need more hands on deck to help us achieve our real ambitions. That means we’re hiring pretty much across the board – engineering, product, design, marketing, sales, and ops. Come join us and be a part of charting the next chapter for Loom.

One last big change. Shahed, our co-founder, has decided to step back from Loom day-to-day to focus on something new. It feels like it was yesterday when Vinay, Shahed, and myself started pushing the first Loom pixels and code out of our tiny apartment in San Mateo.

We’ll be forever grateful and excited as he embarks on his next chapter. It goes without saying that Shahed will continue to remain a close friend and advisor to Loom for as long as we’re around.

‍✌️