Mobile World Congress. F8. Google I/O.

And in turn, companies that support remote meetings are flourishing. Virtual conference platform is the latest to join the roster of businesses benefiting from increased demand for services that facilitate working and networking remotely.

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Three weeks ago, Hopin had 10,000 organizers on its waiting list, Hopin CEO Johnny Boufarhat said in an interview with SA国际传媒 News. Now, that number is up to 18,000 organizers.

鈥淧eople heard of Hopin, saw our tweets, thought 鈥榦h that鈥檚 a good idea for our events鈥�… and then as soon as this happened I think they sort of just jumped through,鈥� Boufarhat said.

Hopin came out of stealth about three weeks ago and raised $6.5 million in seed funding from investors including and last month.

Hopin aims to replicate the experience and benefits of attending a conference without the expenses and other hoops like travel, logistics and environmental impact. People want to go to conferences to meet others, not just to watch presentations, Boufarhat said.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 why people go to events, it鈥檚 not for live streaming,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou go physically to network with people, to interact with people. And that鈥檚 what we solve.鈥�

How it works

Boufarhat walked me through a demo of the platform on Wednesday. Users can watch what鈥檚 being presented on the 鈥渟tage,鈥� join sessions, or network with other attendees.

About 100,000 people can tune in to presentations happening on the stage–a figure the company wants to get to 1 million soon. The 鈥渟essions鈥� feature lets users join gatherings with other people, raise their hand and ask questions. And 鈥渘etworking鈥� works something like chat roulette for events–organizers can put groups together or keep them apart if, say, they don鈥檛 think reporters want to be networking with salespeople.

Hopin is still in early-access mode and has hosted about 1,100 events so far, 800 of which have been in the past six weeks, Boufarhat said. The number of attendees at events from January to February grew nine times.

The company has 20 employees and is planning to double its team to keep up with the product and demand.

Said Boufarhat, 鈥淲e鈥檙e still product focused, we鈥檙e always going to be product focused 鈥� but at the same time, we need to be able to help people who want to have these events.鈥�

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Northzone’s new fund will focus on “early-stage innovative consumer and enterprise companies across Europe and the US East Coast” . The investing group puts capital to work in the early stages of the startup market, after Seed and before growth-stage investors take the baton.

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The new fund is Northzone’s largest to date. The investing company’s first fund was a raised in 1997. That capital collection was followed by two more funds in the 90’s ( and ). In 2003, according to SA国际传媒 data, Northzone . That was its last fund under the nine-figure mark. A in 2006 was followed by in 2010. Then in 2014 and 2016 Northzone and , respectively.

Northzone is not the only fund we鈥檝e seen raise record capital recently; it鈥檚 become a theme for venture groups to raise ever-larger capital pools to invest from as startups stay private longer, and competition for attractive deals has grown.

The group’s latest fund is not the only European-focused fund recently on the market. ‘s also made headlines. Similar to Northzone, Balderton is an early-stage investor with a focus on both Series A rounds and the EU market.

Europe

Anecdotally we’re seeing optimism regarding the European startup scene, at least from a venture perspective. TechCrunch reporter said that it was the fourth new EU-focused venture fund that he’d covered in a week, for example. (It on Europe.)

The data bears out the point. Of the in Europe worth $50 million or more, 243 have been raised in 2019, or just under 20 percent.聽That one in five larger venture rounds in Europe’s history have been raised inside the last 12 months is notable.

Raising the stakes to $100 million, we can find record in Europe from any time period. Of those, 135 have been announced so far this year. That’s nearly 22 percent, an even greater share of the historical total than what we saw at the $50 million threshold.

From a venture perspective, then, Europe-based startups have good access to capital in both large, and very large doses. And with Northzone and Balderton out in the market with new, early-stage focused funds it must be good times to be a startup based inside the Schengen Area.

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