Roam, which bills itself as “Cloud HQ” for distributed and remote companies, today went public with a $30 million Series A round of funding led by IVP with undisclosed angel investor participation. The previously undisclosed $10.6 million comes after a seed round and gives the company an estimated $95 million in post-funding that will be used for marketing efforts in the U.S. and abroad, CEO Howard Lerman said.
Lerman previously co-founded and led Yext, a publicly traded brand management company that develops cloud-based applications and search engines to keep company information up-to-date on the web. As Yext’s workforce shifted to remote work during the pandemic, Lerman said workers lost “diligence and politeness,” spending more time in meetings and losing visibility into what was going on in other meetings and what their colleagues were doing.
“I had this flash of insight – what if there was a bird’s-eye view of all the hype going on in a company when everyone could see it? And even better, what if people could move between and among them and engage as needed and then quickly move on to the next thing?” Lerman told TechCrunch via email.
Bellerman points out, the shift to a more remote workforce won’t happen overnight. One survey found that nearly half – 46% – find remote work, at least in the early stages, making it more difficult to maintain professional relationships with key stakeholders.
That inspired Rome, which Lerman offers as cloud-based “flexible spaces” for workers who work at home, in the office and in the field. Rome’s map view allows employees to see what’s going on and “have project presence,” Lerman says, as well as chat with colleagues via text or video chat.
Lerman hasn’t revealed much beyond that – it’s early days for Rome, which currently has about 40 corporate clients. But he argues that the platform can save a lot of time compared to conventional remote configurations as it exists today.
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“When I switched from 4.5 hours a day to 2.6 hours a day from Zoom to Roam, I found my personal meeting minutes decreased by more than 40%. My average meeting time in Roam is eight minutes, which is an amazing number when you consider the 30 and 60 minutes of zoom time that was previously scheduled,” said Lerman.
Shorter and fewer meetings result in cost savings through improved productivity. A recent study by the University of North Carolina found that unnecessary meetings cost an employee $25,000 a year, which translates to $101 million a year for an organization with more than 5,000 employees.
Roam isn’t the first startup to attempt a cloud-based workplace solution around remote work. In fact, there are dozens of virtual IQ platforms, some venture-backed and some bootstrapping, mixing gamification and productivity into services. In August, Kumospace raised $21 million for an immersive platform that uses lo-fi graphics and game-like mechanics. Collect is another big winner (albeit with layoffs), raising a total of $77 million from investors including Sequoia, Index, and Y Combinator.
Not just beginners. This summer, Microsoft launched Viva Engage, an in-house social media app for employee engagement. Other companies are considering using VR and apps like Oculus for Business or Horizon Workrooms to enhance collaboration with immersive meetings for remote workers.
But Lerman strongly believes that Rome will set itself apart by investing the entire race in its own round. In the year According to a March 2022 Gallup poll, 77 percent of US-based jobs are currently remote or hybrid, representing a large customer base.
Indeed, after more than two years of remote work, many employees have no desire to return to the office. Not all businesses are behind the changes, but there’s no denying that the pandemic has rewritten the rules around the workplace — to the benefit of startups like Rome.
“We are on the cusp of moving from in-office workplaces to a variety of remote and hybrid models. In pre-pandemic 2019, [only] 40% of US jobs were remote or hybrid,” Lerman said. “The pandemic has dramatically accelerated the pace of distributed businesses and the need for cloud headquarters. No matter how big or how good they are, the future of work is a top concern for almost every company these days.
Rome has 15 employees and plans to hire five more by the end of the year. Lerman declined to disclose financial information, including revenue figures, when asked.
