Blue Jeans Network raises $50 million

“Blue Jeans Network is the new face of business collaboration. The company’s cloud-based, interoperable solution was a shock to the system of the traditional video and web conferencing markets and quickly made Blue Jeans a leader in the space,” said Roger Lee, general partner, Battery Ventures. “Along the way, Blue Jeans set a new standard for SaaS business models with exceptional revenue growth and retention rates that rivals companies like Salesforce and Workday at similar stages. Now Blue Jeans is redefining the video conferencing and business collaboration markets, while expanding the parameters with an eye toward replacing every phone call with a face-to-face Blue Jeans meeting.”

Fuelled by the growing desire for a single, scalable, easy-to-use service for face-to-face collaboration and rich content sharing across conference rooms, desktops, and mobile devices, Blue Jeans is bridging the gap between increasingly dispersed social and business networks. The recent round of funding, led by Roger Lee of Battery Ventures, brings the total of overall financing for Blue Jeans to nearly $100 million. Existing investors Accel Partners, New Enterprise Associates and Norwest Venture Partners also participated in the financing. In addition to supporting innovation, the funding will fuel market expansion with new offices in San Francisco and new operations in Europe and Australia.

The Internet flattened the world, democratizing information and access, but it also introduced a layer of anonymity that negatively impacts communication. Studies prove that face-to-face video helps people meaningfully connect, reducing hostility, fostering empathy and improving communication. In the last two years, more than 2,000 diverse customers, ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies, have been using Blue Jeans to improve their businesses. Over three million participants from customers such as Edelman, Facebook, Match.com, Noble Energy, Opower, and Stanford University have conducted nearly two million meetings with Blue Jeans.

“Collaboration in emails or via phone is OK, but having that personal, visual communication is massively better. Every aspect of our business is visual, and having the ability to see each other, collaborate on a project and build a meaningful connection improves the process of working together and with our clients,” said Heather Potter, Vice President, IT Planning and Special Projects, HKS Inc., a global architecture firm. “With Blue Jeans, we have a new way to collaborate that is just as easy as picking up the phone but exponentially more powerful.”

“From the beginning, we focused on making video collaboration about the meeting participant. Up until now, traditional methods have been elitist, complex and leave the participant at the mercy of the physical location of the device,” said Krish Ramakrishnan, co-founder and CEO of Blue Jeans Network. “Our new way of thinking has captured more than one-third of the video conferencing services market in just two years. With billions of camera-enabled devices in the workforce, all it takes is Blue Jeans to turn any internet connection into a more impactful face-to-face meeting. Our aim is to transform every distributed meeting into a video meeting, and continue to push the boundaries of visual business collaboration.”

“Today businesses are more geographically dispersed, travel is down, and two-way cameras are prolific,” said Rich Costello, Analyst, IDC. “By embracing the cloud and focusing on interoperability, Blue Jeans is potentially turning every device into a high quality, low-cost video conferencing tool. Having the ability to chat face-to-face anytime, anywhere will help businesses better connect and collaborate with their employees and partners—regardless of location.”