Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Roam, The Future of Remote Work

02/11/2022

By Jules Maltz, Dennis Phelps and Shreyas Garg

The shift to remote work and a geographically dispersed workforce has given companies and employees greater flexibility and freedom, but let's face it: we all miss walking over to a desk and immediately connecting with our colleagues.

In the new, distributed world of work, employees often feel disconnected from their fellow team members, and miss the serendipity, creativity and energy that come from in-person interactions. Monthly or quarterly team bonding activities are, for many remote employees, a poor substitute for the boost they get from daily or weekly office culture. Zoom fatigue is real and it's only getting worse.

What employees and teams need are genuine interactions beyond emails, instant messages and obligatory video calls. They and their organizations want a connective platform that allows them to capture the informality and serendipity of personal interactions, regardless of where in the world they are physically. These are the hallmarks of strong human relationships, and we believe that improving employee and team communication and culture in a format that is invigorating, instead of draining, creates more efficient companies that will attract and keep top talent. This is why IVP is leading a $30M Series A investment in Roam, a new collaboration platform customizable to meet the needs of all distributed teams, so people can meet and connect regardless of where they are.

Roam, Around The World

By reducing the friction to meaningfully and instantly interact with others, Roam makes getting work done easier and faster as it strengthens individual relationships and organizational culture. As your headquarters in the cloud, Roam invites personality, visibility, serendipity and individual connectivity back to distributed work by connecting and displaying every remote and in-person employee in an intuitive visual interface. You can easily start conversations with colleagues whether they're working from home, in-office, in a co-working space, or out in the field.

Colleagues can instantly see when someone is back from vacation-or back from lunch-and quickly knock on their virtual office door to say hello. Roam gives people working in separate floors, shifts or time zones the camaraderie of seeing and talking with one another, spontaneously, in a group or one-to-one.

Companies customize their Roam Cloud HQ to fit their remote and hybrid collaboration needs. You can design your organization's floor plan, place people or teams on floors together, and brand all of it with your company's logo and colors. Roam's patent-pending Graphical Office Interface provides a real-time bird's eye view of your entire distributed team: who is present, whose door is locked and who's meeting with whom (similar to what you'd see in a physical office).

Roam was explicitly designed for this new distributed world we live in: meetings are audio first by default, so that collaborations can start more like phone calls without the demands of person-to-person video. Employees can natively collaborate on 3rd party apps within the platform and not have to watch people screenshare. If the company wants to have an all-hands or a small group meeting, there are rooms in Roam to do that quickly and efficiently. Employees across various offices and remote workers can all finally feel together on one platform. As users of Roam for the last several months, we've seen the power of the platform firsthand and we're excited that Roam today emerged from stealth mode and is ready to share this powerful platform with the world. You can request a Beta invitation at Ro.am.///

Backing CEO Howard Lerman a Second Time

Roam's CEO, Howard Lerman, is an inspirational leader. He founded Roam with deep experience navigating the remote-work challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. He previously founded and led Yext, a company IVP also invested in 13 years ago, growing it to more than 1,000 employees. With Roam, Howard has assembled a dream team of some of the best audio and visual engineers, product leaders, and executives, many of whom have worked together before, including Tom Dixon, Sean MacIsaac, Jon Brod, Grace Sutherland, Jeff Grossman and Kevin Caffrey. These leaders understand the challenges organizations with distributed workforces are eager to overcome and are working tirelessly to create the future of work.

We are excited to invest in Howard for the second time as he builds Roam and helps all companies launch their headquarters in the cloud. Onward!
LINK: https://www.ivp.com/news/blog/roam-the-future-of-remote-work/...
See more stories from ivp

More from IVP

21/02/2023

Scaling Your Product Organization

Part 1: Hiring Scaling a business for long-term success is hard - and so is finding the guidance, insight and lessons learned by those who have done it successf...

11/01/2023

DeepL: A step change in AI-powered language translation

By Eric Liaw, Karthik Ramakrishnan, Ajay Vashee and Albert Zhang, on behalf of IVP As our world becomes more interconnected, demand for high-quality language t...

02/11/2022

Roam, The Future of Remote Work

By Jules Maltz, Dennis Phelps and Shreyas Garg The shift to remote work and a geographically dispersed workforce has given companies and employees greater flex...

18/10/2022

Jasper: This Blog Post (Mostly) Wrote Itself

By Karthik Ramakrishnan, Jules Maltz, Ajay Vashee, Michael Miao and Joanne Shang, with help from Jasper.ai Every day, billions of people start their workdays t...

29/09/2022

Pigment: The true colors of next-gen business planning

By: Ajay Vashee, Somesh Dash, Michael Miao, James Black Business growth is often a function of planning and forecasting - financial, resource, product, sales, ...

15/08/2022

IVP in the Wall Street Journal: Navigating Tech Hiring

After a period of record growth, the tech sector's hiring spree seems to be coming to a close. Rising inflation and slowing demand for tech products are lea...

29/07/2022

7 Ways Founders Lead in Uncertain Times

By Somesh Dash The bear market is roiling venture capital, but the people feeling the most pressure nowadays are founders and CEOs seeing their terms change, v...

29/07/2022

Why I stopped writing, and how I found my voice again

By Cack Wilhelm Writing my way made me a better investor and partner to founders Writing, like running, is often used as an example of operating in a flow sta...

28/07/2022

BreakLine Education and IVP Team Up to Advance High Performing Talent in High Growth Companies

We are thrilled to announce a first-of-its-kind partnership between BreakLine Ed...

06/06/2022

Why you should pledge 1%

IVP recently convened a virtual roundtable of founders and CEOs to learn more about Pledge 1% and consider joining the thousands of companies that have already ...

24/05/2022

The Data Doesn't Lie: Monte Carlo and the Future of Data Observability

By Jason Kong, Cack Wilhelm, Karthik Ramakrishnan, Somesh Dash, and Tom Loverro We're thrilled to announce our investment in data observability company Mo...

03/05/2022

Traceable AI: A Revolutionary Approach to API security

By: Steve Harrick, Somesh Dash, Michael Miao, and Shreyas Garg Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are at the forefront of software communication, workin...

19/04/2022

SEON: Kicking Fraud's Butt

By Michael Miao, Karthik Ramakrishnan, Jules Maltz, and Eric Liaw Cat and Mouse The cartoon classic Tom and Jerry tells the story of two lifelong adversari...

18/04/2022

Clipboard Health: Doing Well by Doing Good

By: Louisa Xu, Army Tunjaicon, Jules Maltz, and Tom Loverro Not many founders dedicate their lives to lifting people up the socioeconomic ladder. Wei Deng i...

14/04/2022

Obsidian and an Industry Shift

By Somesh Dash, Joanne Shang, Shreyas Garg and Cack Wilhelm IVP is proud to announce our investment in Obsidian Security, the first truly comprehensive securi...

08/03/2022

IVP stands with Ukraine

We have been shocked to witness the Russian government's horrific invasion of Ukraine unfold. At IVP, we stand in solidarity with Ukraine and condemn Russia...

14/02/2022

Inspirato: Reimagining Luxury Travel

By Todd Chaffee Today we are honored to congratulate CEO Brent Handler, President David Kallery, and the entire team at Inspirato on a successful public listi...

07/02/2022

The Starting Line

A post by Cack Wilhelm There is a Silicon Valley maxim often shared with entrepreneurs entering their public debut: the IPO is not the conclusion. It is the st...

07/02/2022

IVP Promotes Cack Wilhelm to General Partner

Menlo Park, CA - February 7, 2022 IVP, a seasoned, trusted, and understated partner for many of the technology industry's fastest-growing companies, is p...

22/12/2021

Cack Wilhelm Named on the GrowthCap's Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors of 2021 List

Menlo Park, CA December 22, 2021 IVP is pleased to announce that Cack Wilhel...

16/12/2021

IVP 2021 in Review - Breakout Performance with 15 IPOs and $1.8 Billion Fund to Serve Hypergrowth Companies

Menlo Park, CA - December 16, 2021 - IVP shared a summary of key milestones for ...

16/12/2021

Found raises $100M in Series B funding led by WestCap

In addition to new funding, Found welcomes Chief Medical Officer and Chief Behavioral Health Officer San Francisco, CA December 16, 2021 Found, the modern ...

16/12/2021

Found: It's not just about what you lose, it's about what you find

By Jules Maltz, Joanne Shang, and Eric Liaw IVP is excited to announce our investment in Found, a digital-first weight care management company. At IVP, we are ...

14/12/2021

IVP's Hypergrowth Stories: How Attentive Changed the Conversation Between Companies and Customers

In IVP's Hypergrowth Stories series, CEOs of the fastest-growing companies s...

09/12/2021

HashiCorp: The Dawn of HCP

By Tom Loverro, Sandy Miller, Steve Harrick, and Michael Miao Congratulations to HashiCorp CEO Dave McJannet and founders Mitchell Hashimoto and Armon Dadgar a...

18/11/2021

Grammarly Reaches $13B Valuation With New Funding Round to Accelerate Communication Assistance Market Leadership

$200M round, including new investors Baillie Gifford and funds and accounts man...

16/11/2021

H1 Raises $100M Series C to Expand Footprint, Make H1 the Central Healthcare Professional Data Network for Global Healthcare Community

Led by new investor Altimeter Capital, round will help H1 increase velocity of g...

16/11/2021

IVP's Hypergrowth Story: How Amplitude Became the #1 Product Analytics Company and Will Optimize Digital Business

In IVP's Hypergrowth Stories series, CEOs of the fastest-growing companies s...

16/11/2021

IVP's Hypergrowth Stories: How Amplitude Became the #1 Product Analytics Company and Will Optimize Digital Business

In IVP's Hypergrowth Stories series, CEOs of the fastest-growing companies s...

15/11/2021

Podium Raises $201M in Series D Funding to Accelerate the Digital Evolution for Local Businesses

Additional Funding to be Invested Towards Future Growth and Innovation to Suppor...

11/11/2021

From #lovelulus to LVLU Lulus Goes Public!

By Jason Kong, Eric Liaw and Jules Maltz Today we are honored to congratulate the fashionable and amazing team at Lulus on a successful IPO. This marks the 129...

08/11/2021

Nextdoor: The Neighborhood Network

By Jules Maltz Today, we're honored to congratulate Sarah Friar and the entire team at Nextdoor on its successful public listing. Neighbors rely on Nextdoo...

04/11/2021

Yellowbrick Data Raises $75M in Series C1, Sees Adoption of Its Cloud Data Warehouse Accelerating

Yellowbrick adds investment as it attracts host of new enterprise customers to t...

04/11/2021

NerdWallet: Financial Empowerment? Turn to the Nerds

By Tom Loverro, Jules Maltz, Eric Liaw and Cack Wilhelm We're thrilled to congratulate Co-Founder & CEO, Tim Chen and Co-Founder, Jake Gibson, and the ent...

25/10/2021

IVP's Hypergrowth Stories: How Grammarly Got to 30 Million Daily Active Users

In IVP's Hypergrowth Stories series, CEOs of the fastest-growing companies s...

21/10/2021

FTX Trading Ltd. Closes $420 Million Series B-1 Funding Round

This Financing Round Raises the Company's Valuation to $25 Billion Nassau, Bahamas Oct. 21, 2021 FTX Trading Ltd. ( FTX or the Company ), owner and o...

19/10/2021

Aiven Achieves $2B Unicorn Valuation with its Series C Extension

Aiven's existing investors increase capital investment to double down the company's exponential growth and global open source innovation Helsinki, Finl...

14/10/2021

Tala Raises $145 Million Series E to Become Largest Financial Platform for the Global Underbanked

The round will fuel the rollout of new mobile-first account services and crypto ...

07/10/2021

Ajaib: Democratizing Investments in Southeast Asia

By Army Tunjaicon, Cack Wilhelm, Eric Liaw, Jules Maltz, and Louisa Xu One of the first lessons taught in Finance 101 is the value of compounding. According to...

29/09/2021

Amplitude: Making an Increasingly Digital-First World a Better Place

By Somesh Dash, Tom Loverro, Jules Maltz and James Black Today, at IVP, we are thrilled to congratulate Spenser Skates, Curtis Liu, Jeffrey Wang and the entire...

22/09/2021

Sorare raises $680M Series B to create the next sports entertainment giant leveraging NFTs

The round is led by SoftBank, with participation from Atomico, Bessemer Ventures...

22/09/2021

Sorare: The Next Generation of Fantasy Sports

By James Black, Eric Liaw, and Tom Loverro Today, IVP is proud to announce our investment in Sorare, the leader in global fantasy football powered by NFTs. We ...

13/09/2021

Papaya Global Raises $250 Million in Series D Funding at $3.7 Billion Valuation

Announces DEI Dashboard to Support Social Responsibility Tel Aviv, Israel & New York, NY September 13, 2021 Papaya Global, the industry-leading workforce m...

01/09/2021

Checkr Raises $250 Million at $4.6 Billion Valuation to Build Hiring Infrastructure for the Future of Work

San Francisco, CA September 1, 2021 Checkr, a leading HR technology company ...

30/08/2021

WHOOP Raises $200 Million Financing Led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 at $3.6 Billion Valuation

Boston, MA Aug. 30, 2021 WHOOP, the human performance company, today announc...

30/08/2021

IVP Adds Shreyas Garg and Joanne Shang as New Investors to the Team

Menlo Park, CA - August 30, 2021 - IVP, a premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firm, is pleased to announce two new additions to its investment...

25/08/2021

Cribl Raises $200M in Series C Funding on Traction with Global Enterprise Customers, Vision to Unlock Value of all Observability Data

Cribl is driving an Open Ecosystem of Data for enterprises; Flagship observabi...

25/08/2021

Cribl: Observing the Right Trend

By Cack Wilhelm, Jason Kong, Army Tunjaicon, Eric Liaw, and Tom Loverro We have just, today, announced a Series C investment in Cribl, and we are excited to sh...

12/08/2021

TaxBit Raises $130M Series B at $1.33B Valuation to Disrupt Legacy Tax Information Reporting

Dozens of financial institutions commit to real-time tax center solutions Salt ...

12/08/2021

TaxBit The Most Fun We've Ever Had Talking About Taxes

By Tom Loverro, Ajay Vashee, Eric Liaw, and James Black Today, IVP is proud to announce our investment in TaxBit, the leading tax and accounting software provi...