Zoom launches $100M venture fund

Zoom on Tuesday announced the launch of Zoom Apps Fund, a new $100 million venture fund, created to stimulate growth of Zoom’s ecosystem of Zoom Apps, integrations, developer platform, and hardware. 

Through this fund, the company will invest in portfolio companies looking to revolutionise the way Zoom customers meet, collaborate, and communicate on the platform.

Portfolio companies will receive initial investments between $250,000 and $2.5 million to build solutions that will become core to how Zoom customers meet, communicate, and collaborate, the company said in a statement.

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There are dozens of companies working on Zoom Apps integrations. The Zoom Apps Fund will invest in developer partners with viable products and early market traction, the statement added.

“I founded Zoom in 2011, nearly ten years ago. Without the support of early investors, Zoom would not be what it is today,” said Eric S Yuan, CEO and Founder of Zoom.

“What I’ve learned over the past year is that we need to keep meetings productive and fun. My hope is that the Zoom Apps Fund will help our customers meet happier and collaborate even more seamlessly, and at the same time help entrepreneurs build new businesses as our platform evolves,” he added.  

The company is further inviting applications from portfolio companies looking to build such solutions.

In February this year, Eric said in January-April last year, in terms of free users in India, there was a growth of 70 times. He said this was in sync with the global experience, where the daily meeting participants zoomed to up to 350 million in April from a peak of 10 million in December.

The app has over 2,500 schools in India as members, he said, hinting of classes being conducted online. Yuan said once augmented reality and virtual reality become a reality, apps like Zoom could also help regain the intimacy of shaking hands or hugging the person you are "meeting" through dedicated headsets.