REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Feb. 07, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Highfive, the company delivering insanely easy video conferencing, today announced that it has raised $32 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to US $77.4 million.
The round was led by Dimension Data, the US $8 billion global technology integrator and managed services subsidiary of the NTT Group. Existing investors Lightspeed, General Catalyst, and Andreessen Horowitz also participated in the round. Highfive will use the funding to scale its sales and marketing teams and expand its business across the globe.
Dimension Data’s investment follows the completion of a strategic global distribution deal with Highfive, which expands its portfolio of collaboration solutions it already provides to its client base with partners including Cisco, Polycom, Avaya, and Microsoft.
In addition to establishing a global distribution channel with Dimension Data, Highfive has also scaled up its worldwide data center footprint using the AWS Cloud to support its growing list of international customers with data centers in 18 geographic regions around the world.
Joe Manuele, Group Executive Vice President of Customer Experience and Collaboration at Dimension Data, who has joined Highfive's board said, “Dimension Data’s footprint of collaboration clients across the globe gives us a unique view of the evolution of the market. We recognize a huge opportunity to grow the video conferencing addressable market by leveraging innovative cloud based solutions.
“Highfive’s all-in-one solution solves an important challenge towards video conferencing ubiquity. We’re pleased to be an investor and we’re looking forward to delivering the solution to our clients as part of our distribution partnership,” Manuele said.
The new round of financing comes as Highfive grows its annual recurring revenue (ARR) by more than 100% and accelerates its product development. Highfive’s ongoing product updates are driving customer satisfaction and usage to all-time highs, with more than 140,000 meetings per month accounting for roughly 16 million minutes. The company’s customer base, one of the fastest-growing in the industry, continues to expand with companies that include Paperless Post, The Hustle, Bankrate and The Atlantic, who join existing customers like Warby Parker, Harry's, Expensify, and the Girl Scouts of Northern California.
"People are tired of conferencing systems that require downloads, pin codes, or excess cables. Highfive is the only solution that eliminates those frustrations for people who just want to have a meeting,” said Shan Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO of Highfive. “Our growth reflects the continued need for video conferencing that’s easy-to-use and deployable across every meeting room. With Dimension Data’s 30 years of industry experience, we see the company’s investment as validation for what we’ve built at Highfive, and our vision for how we can make companies work better together.”
Highfive has set the industry standard for video as a service with its integrated hardware and software solution. As the company continues to scale and grow its offerings, the focus remains on making video calls as easy as possible and meetings more productive. Most recently, Highfive gained traction with a commitment to WebRTC-powered technology and the launch of their Join by Browser service, which eliminates software downloads and allows customers to join meetings directly in their web browsers with just a single click and no compromises.
The company has continued its rapid growth by expanding the executive team with the recent addition of a new CFO and CRO and introducing a series of new features in addition to the Join by Browser capability, including call recording, Call Me, and new integrations with Microsoft applications. The new additions to the team, coupled with the new round of funding, will allow Highfive to move more quickly as the company extends its reach internationally, and the product improvements are geared towards making the overall video conferencing experience easier and more robust than ever. For more information on Highfive, visit www.highfive.com.
About Highfive
Highfive makes meetings awesome with easy simple video conferencing built for your meeting rooms. With Highfive there are no cables, dongles, app downloads or remote controls. Instead, it’s a modern, all-in-one solution with sleek hardware and integrated cloud-based conferencing software at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems. Highfive is based in Redwood City, California, and backed by General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and GV (Google Ventures).
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