Userful Gains $10M Funding To expand Into Enterprise AV-over-IP Market

Calgary, AB - Userful, the leading platform-as-a-service provider in the Enterprise AV-over-IP market—the fastest-growing segment of the IT industry announced the close of its second funding round, raising $10M, following on seed financings of $3M. The investment is expected to accelerate Userful’s current growth by funding sales and marketing expansion, new product development, and ecosystem partnerships for its platform.  

This latest round of financing garnered new participation from leading venture capital funds, including BDC Capital’s Industrial, Clean and Energy Technology (ICE) Venture Fund and Yaletown Partners (Vancouver).  In addition, Birchcliff Partners, Accelerate Fund, and other Series A investors recommitted with greater than pro-rata participation.

“As Userful continues to expand its SaaS business with enterprise customers, telcos, and integrators around the world, we are proud to have garnered the support of BDC ICE and Yaletown. The importance of visual engagement in the operations of the modern enterprise is a priority. Modernizing workflows for better employee and customer engagement is essential,” says, Userful’s CEO, John Marshall. “Userful provides software-defined solutions for AV-over-IP services that includes commercially off-the-shelf hardware that best supports the needs of the modern enterprise.”

Userful’s flagship offering to IT departments that seek to deploy an increasing number of AV and IoT services for employee and customer engagement is its Visual Networking Platform.  This infrastructure management offering is Platform-as-a-Service that enables a range of Userful and 3rd party AV and IoT services to the enterprise, including control room services, corporate signage, meeting room solutions, unified communications, datametrics dashboards, and immersive experience (AR/VR/IR).

“From a venture capital standpoint, I’ve been impressed with Userful’s demonstrated leadership and viability within the rapidly growing AV-over-IP market,” says Brad Johns, Partner, Yaletown Partners and new Chairman of the Board, Userful. “I had initial exposure to Userful through the Accelerate Fund investment and the company has proven itself in converting its business model and augmenting its solution.” I congratulate Userful for growing through the pandemic and continuing to advance its mission critical platform.” 

“It was clear to us – Userful checked all the boxes, proving it has developed a solid solution for the enterprise, industrial transformation for factories and providing energy conservation benefits as corporations go through the hard time of energy transformation and hardware supply chain challenges,” says Sidd Krishnan, Partner, Industrial, Clean and Energy Technology (ICE) Venture Fund at BDC Capital. “We were impressed by the feedback we’ve heard from various existing clients and are very excited to support the company through this round of financing and its next phase of growth.” 

To complement the leadership team, Userful has recently appointed four new Strategic Advisors. Augmenting its technical leadership, the Advisory Board expands to include Brian Lewis, co-founder and Chief Architect of Elemental Technologies (acquired by AWS) and Mohammad Moshirpour, Software Engineering Teaching Chair and Program Director (MEng in Software Engineering) at the Department of Electrical and Software Engineering, University of Calgary. Lewis and Moshirpour join CTO Reza Razavi and Board Member John LeMoncheck, AV-industry veteran who launched HDMI for the world thru Silicon Image, on Userful’s Technology Strategy Committee. Collectively, they bring leading expertise in advanced encoding, AV networks, and AI for software-defined platforms.

Joining as Strategic Advisors to CEO John Marshall are Matt Sachse, Managing Partner at AQ Technology Partners, and Neil Frizzell, Managing Partner at Chrysalis Capital Advisors Inc. and Co-Founder/Partner at Birchcliff Partners LP.

“The AV-over-IP industry is currently undergoing a period of radical transformation with expected growth from $3 billion today to $51 billion by 2027 according to Maia Research 2021. As the industry reexamines its use of proprietary hardware, faces supply chain challenges, wrestles with energy-consuming systems and siloed solutions, the attraction of software-defined platforms will become increasingly attractive,” says Matt Sachse. “Userful has developed a revolutionary software-defined visualization and control platform that is proving valuable to many corporate customers, universities, and governments across the globe.  I am pleased to be joining Userful’s Advisory Board and excited to work alongside Userful’s CEO, John Marshall as the company continues to distinguish itself as an emerging player in the industry.” 

 

About Userful 

Userful is the world’s leading platform-as-a-service provider in the Enterprise AV-over-IP market—the fastest-growing segment of the IT industry, forecasted to grow from today’s $3B to $51B by 2027, a 60 per cent 5-year CAGR. Userful’s Visual Networking Platform is disrupting the market with a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model that allows customers to choose from a suite of highly-integrated AV applications (SaaS offerings, secure, SSO, integrated UI) to support modern service needs across the enterprise. From corporate signage to control room solutions to streaming platforms and data metrics, Userful's solutions enable modernized business operations for IT leaders and the functional departments they support. Userful helps organizations advance the way they work, learn and govern with secure, scalable and centrally managed solutions for employee and customer engagement worldwide. 

About Yaletown Partners 

Yaletown Partners is a leading Canadian venture capital fund manager that invests in the technologies digitally transforming traditional industries by prioritizing climate-resilient growth. In 2017, Yaletown received the CVCA’s Venture Capital Deal of the Year award for its investment in BitStew. Backed by leading institutional investors, including pension funds, and a network of successful technology entrepreneurs, Yaletown has offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montréal.

About BDC Capital

BDC Capital is the investment arm of BDC, the bank for Canadian entrepreneurs. BDC Capital serves as a strategic partner to the country’s most innovative firms. It offers businesses a full spectrum of capital, from seed investments to growth equity, supporting Canadian entrepreneurs who have the ambition to stand out on the world stage. Visit bdc.ca/capital. 

Media Contacts

Danielle Alfaro 

PR & Communications Manager, Userful 

communications@userful.com