Klaxoon Raises $50 Million in Series B Funding to Further Expand The Meeting Revolution Worldwide

PARIS, May 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Klaxoon, the global champion of teamwork solutions, today announced it has secured $50 million in Series B Funding in a round led by Idinvest Partners with participation from additional early round investors including Bpifrance, Sofiouest, Arkea and White Star Capital Fund. This investment will allow Klaxoon to boost its R&D development of its ever increasingly sophisticated collaboration tools and further extend its international presence.     

Klaxoon is revolutionizing the way organizations harness the power of their teams with solutions designed to address one of the most daunting challenges of teamwork – make meetings efficient.  Launched in 2015 after two years of intensive development, Klaxoon has powered a meeting revolution with a sophisticated SaaS platform of advanced tools that improve any type of meeting.  From increasing engagement, facilitating better and faster decisions, improving information retention, encouraging creativity and tracking actionable outcomes, Klaxoon is addressing an unmet and ever-increasing need.

The average U.S. executive has 2-3 meetings a day and will spend 16 years of their life in a meeting. While the need for collaboration and time spent in meetings has skyrocketed with modern and mobile work practices, the digital tools to serve businesses have largely been focused until now on three main pillars:

• Internal Communications – Facilitating the global sharing of information within a whole company, e.g. Facebook @Workplace, Microsoft Yammer, LumApps, etc.
• Business Tools – Bringing structured processes and tools to conduct business, e.g. Salesforce, Dropbox, etc.
• Instant Messaging – Fostering communication and ongoing information exchanges, e.g. Slack, HipChat, WhatsApp, etc.

Klaxoon is the first player to come up with solutions catering to a fourth pillar – efficient work collaboration in its natural environment – the meeting. Meeting formats have barely evolved since the 1980s and the launch of presentation software. Klaxoon provides the first real alternative to change the way meetings are conducted and its impact can be huge!

"Our research and platform's success show that holding efficient meetings is the secret of successful teams. While new ways of communicating at work have disrupted established practices, improving the structure and focus of meetings has never been revamped or addressed," says Matthieu Beucher, Klaxoon's CEO. "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. This is where Klaxoon comes in. Our solutions help optimize meeting duration and boost collective intelligence, making it easier for everyone to contribute and bring fun to collaborative work. Now thanks to this significant Series B round, we will be able to help even more companies around the world improve their meetings and collaborations."

A Future Collaborating Giant

Accessible from any connected device, Klaxoon makes a difference whatever the business or the nature, location or size of the team. Just as PCs have allowed everyone from individuals to large organizations and businesses to execute multiple tasks more efficiently, The Klaxoon suite of tools revolutionize the way millions collaborate with each other all around the world.

In just three years, Klaxoon has demonstrated impressive global growth and today has more than a million active users in more than 120 counties. With an equal split of small businesses and major players such Toyota, Dior, L'Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, Air France, Accenture and Marriot using Klaxoon, it has established itself as the dominate global player. 

In addition to funding R&D initiatives, Klaxoon plans to use the capital to expand its business operations in North America and Europe. Recently ranked one of the top five organizations in France by the "Great Place to Work," Klaxoon plans to add a further 100 people to its team, bringing its total to 250.

"Klaxoon has the DNA of a future global champion. We are excited to come onboard as we have total confidence in the vision of its founder and the talents within its teams," said Benoit Grossman, Managing Director of Idinvest Partners. "I am convinced that the appeal of their innovative collaborative solutions will 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. We see them poised for accelerated growth in the international markets, in the US in particular," quoted Patrice Hutin, Board Member and COO of Sofiouest.

"Klaxoon has proved in the past 24 months its great capacity to foster a true digital revolution not only among the most successful CAC40 companies, but also among renowned agile players in France, and internationally," explains Eric Martineau-Fortin, managing partner of White Start Capital. "With its meeting enhancing solutions, Klaxoon is taking on a huge market, responding to a global need. Moreover, Matthieu Beucher and his team are one of the most talented teams we have met in the past 24 months. We are delighted to pursue this beautiful adventure together."

Bpifrance contributes to financing the company's innovation as well as its international development. "We are convinced of the great potential of Klaxoon and its capacity to deeply transform the way we work in teams. The arrival of the Digital Ambition Fund to its capital must give Klaxoon the means to assert its leadership both in France and internationally," adds Véronique Jacq, director of digital investment at Bpirance.

Available from $19 a month on a SaaS subscription model, the Klaxoon offering consists of:

• Klaxoon – A sophisticated online platform that is accessible from any connected device. It offers a range of tools and apps to manage, enhance and track a range of meeting activities from timekeeping and engagement to brainstorming and interactive training.
• MeetingBoard – A state-of the-art interactive whiteboard that provides larger-than life-access to the Klaxoon platform. It turns any environment into a meeting space.
• Klaxoon Box – Bringing the power of Klaxoon in a self-contained environment. A closed Wi-Fi network for participants to connect to Klaxoon, it is used when internet is not available or the utmost security is required.

HD visuals can be downloaded here.

ww.klaxoon.com

About Klaxoon
Headquartered in Rennes, France, with a U.S. office in New York, Klaxoon currently employees more than 150 people. In addition, it operates a showcase Klaxoon Store in the center of Paris. Founded by Matthieu Beucher, Klaxoon launched in March 2015, and today is used by thousands of teams across 120 countries. It has attracted users in all kind of organizations, small and middle-sized businesses, Universities, NGO and institutions as well as 90% of global actors listed on the CAC 40 stock-exchange index (Schneider, Disneyland, L'Oréal, Accenture, Nestlé, Sealed Air, Verizon, Marriott etc.). Klaxoon is one of the fastest growing companies in Europe.

Based on visual management techniques and Agile methods, Klaxoon tools have received numerous international awards. Klaxoon R&D teams work on an ongoing basis to build an efficient and comprehensive ecosystem, which fosters interaction and collective intelligence.

Press Contacts

Ian Twinn – [email protected] - +1(917) 306 7270

About White Star Capital
White Star Capital is an early-stage Venture Capital firm that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs building ambitious, data-driven businesses. Based out of London, New York, Montreal, Paris and Tokyo, our international presence, perspective and people enable us to partner closely with our Founders to help them scale internationally from Series A onwards.
Find out more about how we venture beyond at www.whitestarvc.com

Contact : Anne-France Malrieu +33689876118, [email protected]

About Bpifrance

Bpifrance is the French national investment bank: It finances businesses – at every stage of their development – through loans, guarantees, equity investments and export insurances. Bpifrance also provides extra financial services (training, consultancy...) to help entrepreneurs meet their challenges (innovation, export…). For more information, please visit: www.bpifrance.fr and presse.bpifrance.fr - Follow us on Twitter: @Bpifrance - @BpifrancePresse

Contact Bpifrance

Nathalie Police, + 33(0)1 41 79 95 26, [email protected]

About Idinvest

Idinvest Partners is a leading European mid-market private equity firm. With close to €8bn under management, the firm has developed several areas of expertise including innovative startup venture capital transactions; mid-market corporate debt, i.e. single-tranche, senior and subordinated debt; primary and secondary investment and private equity advisory services. Founded in 1997 Idinvest Partners used to be an Allianz subsidiary until 2010, when it branched out as an independent firm. In January 2018, Idinvest Partners joined forces with Eurazeo to create a private equity leader in Europe and North America with €15bn under management.

Contact : Marie-Claire Martin, +33 (0)1 58 18 56 69, [email protected]

Advisors

Bpifrance: Véronique Jacq, Adrien Neel, Clarisse Blandin

Klaxoon: Orrick and Alpha Capital Partners

Financial advisors

Alpha Capital Partners (UK) Marc Oiknine

SOURCE Klaxoon