France’s Klaxoon, A Virtual Meeting Startup, Raises $50M To Boost R&D, Hire, And Extend Global Presence

French virtual meeting startup Klaxoon has raised $50 million in a Series B round led by Idinvest Partners of Paris. Bpifrance, France’s Sofiouest, Arkea, and the United Kingdom’s White Star Capital Fund also participated in the funding round.

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The Paris-based company secured $5 million in a Series A financing in 2016, so the latest deal brings its total capital raised to $55 million. Founded in 2015, Klaxoon has developed a SaaS platform where users can create shared virtual meeting spaces with quizzes, surveys, challenges, and brainstorming tools.

According to Klaxoon, meeting formats have evolved very little since the 1980s and the launch of presentation software. The company’s offerings aim to increase engagement in meetings, facilitate faster and improved decisions, and boost information retention. Its platform is accessible from any connected device.

The amount raised is significant for the European region, For example, European startups raising Series B funds brought in an average of $22.97 million per round in 2017, according to Crunchbase data.

Klaxoon CEO and Founder Matthieu Beucher acknowledged that the round is on the larger end of the spectrum for Europe.

“We feel it reflects the confidence our investors have in the size of the emerging global market for teamwork solutions and a recognition of the rapid growth Klaxoon has demonstrated since launch,” he wrote via email.

The startup plans to use the latest capital infusion to boost R&D of its tools and further extend its presence in North America and Europe. Klaxoon also plans to hire an additional 100 workers, according to Beucher, bringing its total number of employees to 250.

More than one million users and 1,500 organizations in over 120 countries use the Klaxoon platform. Clients include Toyota, Dior, L’Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, Air France, Accenture, and Marriott. A number of small and middle-sized businesses, universities, NGOs, and institutions are also among its client base.

“While new ways of communicating at work have disrupted established practices, improving the structure and focus of meetings has never been revamped or addressed,” said Beucher in a written statement. “We’ve found that organizations need a solution that would allow their employees to easily get in sync with their team, no matter if they are working remote or in different time zones.”

In a written statement, Idinvest Partners Managing Director Benoit Grossman said he believes the company will continue to keep growing on a global scale.

“We have trusted Klaxoon since its inception, and their success on home turf and their success so far has been quite remarkable,” said Patrice Hutin, a Klaxoon board member and COO of Sofiouest. “We see them poised for accelerated growth in the international markets, in the US in particular.”

Klaxoon describes itself as one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe. There’s no doubt that this funding round ranks it, at least, among the highest funded.