Highlights:

  • RingCentral is also acquiring the startup’s second product, Session. It’s a cloud-based tool that allows you to hold webinars, virtual breakout sessions, and other small-scale online gatherings.
  • Hopin’s Events platform also features two more tools that assist businesses in managing video content and creating landing pages to advertise their events.

RingCentral Inc. announced taking over Hopin Ltd.’s flagship Events platform, which businesses use to host virtual and hybrid events.

The company is also acquiring the startup’s second product, Session, a cloud-based tool that enables it to hold webinars, virtual breakout sessions, and other small-scale online gatherings.

Based in Belmont, California, RingCentral is a publicly traded collaboration software company. RingCentral Video, its flagship product, is a videoconferencing app. The company also sells conference room equipment software, a webinar hosting platform, and a variety of other solutions, including online fax service.

Meanwhile, Hopin is a London-based venture-backed firm. Companies utilize its Events platform to host virtual events and coordinate allied tasks such as marketing. Platform customers include VMware Inc., PepsiCo Inc., and other significant corporations.

The Virtual Venue service is the fundamental component of Events. It enables businesses to construct an online event reception page, stream video content to nearly 100,000 people, and arrange breakout sessions. Hopin’s Events platform also includes two other tools for organizing video content and developing landing pages to promote events.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company expanded rapidly from less than ten employees at the beginning of 2019 to more than 800 by late 2021. It raised approximately one billion dollars in venture capital along the way.

The company’s most recent funding round was a USD 450 million Series D investment disclosed in August 2021. Following the funding, the startup indicated that it expected a large number of customers to return to in-person events in 2022. Back then, over a period of a year, Hopin slayed more than a third of its workforce through a series of layoffs.

Johnny Boufarhat, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Hopin reported, “We recognized that our events business, and the immense talent behind it, could grow to its fullest potential within the RingCentral ecosystem due to its global scale, respected brand, and go-to-market capabilities as a leading UCaaS platform.”

Speaking of Hopin’s Session platform, it offers an analytics tool for evaluating user engagement and a variety of other features along with the primary video streaming capabilities.

RingCentral will hire Hopin engineering, product and go-to-market specialists who worked on Events and Session as part of the acquisition. Customers from the two platforms will also migrate to the company.

Hopin also intends to emphasize its remaining products as a segment of its strategy. StreamYard, the startup’s live streaming service, also manages a video hosting platform. Furthermore, it is launching a new enterprise offering called Superwave, which is expected to let companies exchange insights with customers, such as product updates.