Brazilbased Rocket.chat 8m Maus 16m – Rocket.Chat Software, an open source enterprise messaging service, has announced the completion of a $19M Series A round led by London-based venture capital firm Draper Esprit with participation from other investors including Naver and SMBC.
Rocket.Chat is a Brazil-based startup that claims to have 8M monthly active users (MAUs) and 16M total put together (across 150 countries), with 650k of them being paid customers per month. The company also claims to have more than 230,000 organizations using their software.
The messaging platform will use the recently raised funds to fuel the growth of their business globally and accelerate development of new features and integrations. The startup has plans to release a full enterprise version during Q2 2018.
Rocket.Chat has been adopted by prominent companies such as Wikimedia Foundation, Linux Foundation, CERN, La Poste, Progressive Insurance Companies, AirBnB and Shareblue Media Inc
Rocket.Chat first launched in 2015, and has since then been used by such companies as GitHub, Wikimedia Foundation and Baidu, among others.
Rocket.Chat is the product of the team behind WebJobs, a micro jobs marketplace that had raised $8M in Series A funding back in 2016. The team had also previously founded Oyez (acquired by LinkedIn).
Hans Rongvaux is the CEO and co-founder of Rocket.Chat. Rongvaux holds a masters degree in computer engineering from University of Texas.
Hans Rongvaux was quoted saying: “Rocket.Chat is the only messaging app that offers both simplicity and high-end features that are useful in enterprises. Enterprise customers love Rocket.Chat because they can fully customize their messaging experience while staying on the main application.”
Rocket.Chat was bootstrapped by its founders.
Rocket.Chat was named one of the “Best open source messaging apps” by TechCrunch in September 2016.
The company has also been mentioned in other articles such as “TechCrunch” which called Rocket.Chat a “throwback to simpler times”, and that the product “looks fantastic”. In addition, there have been articles on VentureBeat, Forbes and CIO.com regarding Rocket.Chat.
TechCrunch mentioned that Rocket.Chat is an interesting alternative to Slack because it has a “beautiful interface, token-based authentication and works on every device.” In addition, the product has been endorsed by CTO of Red Hat Gluster Storage, Brian Stevens.
Rocket.Chat is a messaging platform developed for global teamwork and productivity. You can use Rocket.Chat’s instant-messaging functionality to chat with coworkers or integrate its real-time chat functionality into any application or device you use – including Internet of Things devices.
In addition, Rocket.Chat has integrations with over 800 programming frameworks and is also available on all major desktop OSes, as well as mobile OSes like Android and Bionic.
Rocket.Chat launched in 2015 with a very simple user interface that doesn’t require you to create a username or password to start chatting with your teammates (anything you type will be encrypted only for your eyes). The product, distributed under the MIT License, is free and open source.
The app features features that improve productivity, such as support for lock screen notifications, inline search and smart replies. The app also enables integration with other apps through its API.
It has been used by Wikipedia Foundation to communicate with their membership across 200 countries. Over 175 of the Fortune 500 companies use Rocket.Chat as a main communication channel (LinkedIn, FedEx, Intel). Rocket.
