December 15, 2017, Oslo, Norway – Videonor has acquired appear.in from Telenor, who will remain a minority shareholder of 30%. The acquisition will expand Videonor’s product portfolio to the freelancer and small business markets with appear.in’s UX-focused WebRTC technology. The combined ventures are now located at Tjuvholmen Alle 3, Oslo, however with employees of 13 nationalities spread across eight locations and four countries, both companies practice what they preach – the teams rely on their own technology for collaboration every single day.
With this acquisition, Videonor is strengthening their product portfolio with a cutting-edge web-based service. “We have seen a strong growth in the usage of video conferencing, but we think the majority of the growth is still ahead of us. Traditionally companies have invested in video conferencing hardware for meetings rooms, but we believe that a lot of the growth will also come from usage on laptops and mobile. The sheer usage volume of appear.in, and the fact that they’re world-class in the WebRTC space, was simply too good to pass up.” – says CEO of Videonor Øyvind Reed.
Background on appear.in
appear.in is a free browser-based video service with meetings held with up to 12 participants. The product was started as an intern project in the Norwegian telecom company Telenor in 2013, but quickly grew to become a global video collaboration service, now running nearly 5 million calls per month in over 150 countries worldwide. The service lets users start video calls directly in the browser without any downloads or registration.
“appear.in has been operating as an independent startup from day 1, and we believe this has been instrumental for their success as a truly global service. They have an incredible closeness to their customers, enabling them to change and adapt their product quickly. We believe that this (Videonor) partnership is the next step for appear.in’s growth and development” – says Telenor Executive Vice President for Products & Marketing, Svein Henning Kirkeng.
appear.in supports both a free, and PRO version of services. appear.in PRO gives extra functionality, allows more participants, and custom branding; ideal for small companies and remote workers.
A TEAMS version for larger teams or companies, that will let all employees create large scale branded video rooms, is currently in closed beta. With 7 years experience in selling video conferencing to the SME and Enterprise market, Videonor will bring important competence on the sales and distribution side when bringing these new products to market.
“We have managed to create a service that is so easy to use that video collaboration becomes available to everyone. The millennial generation that is now entering the workforce in full, is expecting enterprise productivity tools to be intuitive and delightful. We believe that video collaboration in 5 years will look radically different, and we want to be leading that development.” – says appear.in CEO Ingrid Ødegaard.
The future of Videonor
Videonor will continue to provide & develop solutions to complex video conferencing environments. With a strong focus on interoperability, Videonor’s Integrations (Skype for Business Gateway & Personal Meeting Rooms), bring Skype for Business and Microsoft Team environments easy connectivity to video endpoints of the likes of Cisco, Polycom, Lifesize, Huddly, & more.
VIDEONOR at-a-glance
Videonor delivers cloud-based software-as-a-service video conferencing at a low monthly cost, avoiding the need to buy expensive equipment or make big up-front investments. As a tech agnostic service provider, Videonor can build solutions that integrate with other conferencing products and endpoints that customers already have in place. Skype, Cisco, Polycom and others can be enhanced with higher quality video and audio service provided by Videonor. With clients in 50+ countries, Videonor currently helps global enterprises, startups, academic institutions and national sports teams communicate more effectively. The company has 18 employees and is headquartered in Måløy, Norway.
APPEAR.IN at-a-glance
appear.in is a web-based video collaboration tool started in Oslo, Norway, built on the new browser standard WebRTC. The service lets you have video meetings effortlessly with up to 12 people in the PRO version. You can start a conversation with no registration or download, and claim your own customized video room for regular meetings. appear.in works on almost any device and even lets you share your screen to show presentations, photos or spreadsheets. 19 employees run the service which has close to 5 million conversations per month, and is used in more than 150 countries every month, with USA, Brazil, India, Japan and France as the 5 largest markets.
Press contacts:
Videonor: Øyvind Reed, CEO Videonor, oyvind.reed@videonor.com, +47 90691532
appear.in: Ingrid Ødegaard, ingrid@appear.in, +47 97600631
Telenor: Atle Lessum, atle.lessum@telenor.com, +47 41505645
