Hopin has become Europe's fastest growing scaleup of all time.
This comes after the virtual events company closed a $450 million Series D, which brings its valuation to $7.75bn.
How bright will its future be?
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Virtual events platform Hopin was founded by British entrepreneur Johnny Boufarhat in 2019.
However, its business has boomed during the pandemic where in person events became impossible, but companies wanted to continue carrying out events with clients, customers and employees in order to remain connection and collaboration.
In this respect, like Zoom, Hopin was in the right place at the right time.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the scaleup has raised $1 billion in capital since February 2020, and its valuation has now reached $7.75 billion after the close of a $450 million Series D. This makes Hopin Europe’s all-time fastest growing startup.
This latest round was led by new investors Arena Holdings and Altimeter Capital and comes less than six months after a $400 million Series C.
Other investors who participated in the Series D include Adams Street Partners, Untitled Investments and XN, Andreessen Horowitz, DFJ Growth, General Catalyst, GIC, IVP, Northzone, Salesforce Ventures, Slack Fund, Temasek, and Tiger Global.
In a blog post announcing the Series D, Boufarhat wrote: “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.
“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.”
Hopin plans to use the funding to continue to scale its platform and will use its recent acquisitions, including Streamable, Boomset, Attendify and StreamYard, to move towards being a ‘multi-product platform”, rather than just focus on virtual events.
In addition, Hopin wants to use the Series D capital to continue to grow its team, which has already expanded from 6 in 2019 to 800 across 47 countries in 2021.
Boufarhat was recently featured in a BBC story because he is UK’s youngest self-made billionaire. He is also a CEO that works entirely remotely and is actually a digital nomad moving between rental properties.
“Being a fully-remote company allows us to do things that other companies haven’t been able to do before,” Boufarhat tells the BBC.
“Also, remote working has allowed us to hire from a global talent pool,” he adds, “which is necessary when you are growing so fast.”
Talking about the Series D round, Altimeter Capital CEO and founder Brad Gerstner noted: “The pandemic has forever changed how companies and communities interact and connect with their audiences and each other.
“We are thrilled to partner with Johnny Boufarhat and the team on their journey to make the world more connected through Hopin’s platform.”
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