Zoom founder makes ‘major investment’ in Cork start-up Workvivo

13 Nov 2019

From left: John Goulding and Eric Yuan. Image: Workvivo

Workvivo, which offers an internal communications platform for companies, has received backing from software entrepreneur Eric Yuan.

On Wednesday (13 November), Cork-based start-up Workvivo announced that it has secured a major investment from US tech entrepreneur and Zoom founder, Eric Yuan.

Workvivo, which was launched two years ago, is an internal communications platform for companies. It has provided its platform to employees in more than 40 countries, across companies of all sizes.

Commenting on the investment, Yuan said that Workvivo’s culture, values and technology were “a perfect fit” for his vision of employee communication, engagement and satisfaction.

The investment by Yuan will help Workvivo to grow its user base to more than 1m by 2021, the company said.

The start-up’s platform is designed based on the way that people interact outside of the workplace. Employees can read and post content to an activity feed, like, share and comment on content, recognise others through shout-outs, and link posts to company goals and values. It also enables users to create community spaces and publish community articles and events.

‘Hugely significant’

Yuan noted that the start-up’s model is well-aligned with the values he kept in mind while creating video communications and remote conferencing software company Zoom.

The entrepreneur said: “The purpose of life is to pursue happiness, and that should always apply to your work life as well as your personal life. Engaging a workforce and making them feel valued should be a top ambition of any company.

“Workvivo is making that ambition a reality, and I am delighted to invest in such an innovative company. I believe Workvivo is fast becoming an essential component in the makeup of successful companies as we head into the next decade.”

Workvivo founder John Goulding added: “Eric’s investment is a hugely significant moment in the Workvivo story. When people feel valued and connected to the organisation, they are engaged.

“In every one of our customers, we can see increases in engagement and retention, because those employees feel part of a community and experience that every day.

“We’re delighted someone like Eric Yuan recognises that in Workvivo,” he concluded.

Before founding his San Jose-based communications company, Yuan was corporate vice-president at Cisco, where he was responsible for the company’s collaboration software development. In 2017, Yuan was named as one of Business Insider’s 52 Most Powerful People in Enterprise Technology, and earlier this year it was reported that the entrepreneur was worth $3bn following Zoom’s IPO.

Kelly Earley was a journalist with Silicon Republic

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