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Spotlight: Zoom

With the advent of global lockdowns, Zoom has become the go-to video conferencing app used by businesses worldwide. The company grew from as governments instituted work-from-home mandates.

from $68 in December 2019 to $478 by November 2020. Zoom made a series of investments between 2020 and 2022 and three acquisitions with its newfound cash flow.

How Does Zoom Make Money?

, including its standard meeting plan (Zoom Meetings), which work on a subscription model. The company has seen fantastic revenue growth from .

Zoom also offers , a hardware leasing service allowing customers to upgrade equipment every three years. Zoom's hardware partners include DTEN, Neat, Poly, and Yealink.

What Products Does Zoom Offer?

As of April 2022, Zoom offers a total of seven video conferencing products, including:

1. : Zoom's flagship video conferencing and meeting service
2. : A webinar hosting service for delivering presentations to large audiences
3. : A cloud-based phone service to replace traditional landline business phone networks
4. : An omnichannel call center solution optimized for video and voice
5. : A virtual events platform with features that replicate a live experience
6. : A Slack-like messaging platform that integrates with other Zoom products
7. : A hybrid technology bridging the gap between online and in-person events that integrates with conferencing hardware

Zoom's App Marketplace also includes more than 1,500 integrations to increase productivity and functionality, including Google Workspace, Asana, and DocuSign, to name a few.

Who Owns Zoom?

Zoom is a publicly-traded company . According to Wall Street Zen, Zoom's shareholder breakdown is 51% institutional investors, 45% retail, and 3%, insider.

Price T Rowe is the biggest institutional investor, holding 6.16% of Zoom, followed by Vanguard, Morgan Stanley, and Blackrock, to name a few. , with a 1.65% stake worth $526.51 million (as of April 2022).

Is Zoom a Chinese-owned company?

Zoom is an American company founded in California, with its headquarters in San Jose, California. Zoom's CEO and founder Eric Yuan is a Chinese American, which is why people often mistake the company for Chinese-owned.

In 2020, Chinese-based Zoom employee Xinjiang Jin allegedly "" under instruction by the Chinese government. Zoom terminated Jin's employment for violating its policies. This scandal was another reason why people wrongly believed Zoom was Chinese-owned.

What Companies use Zoom?

A more appropriate question would be, "which companies aren't using Zoom?" Startups, small businesses, multinational corporations, banks, and governments use Zoom for video conferencing.

What Companies Have Zoom invested in?

, Zoom has made 24 investments.

• Observe.AI: A machine learning tool that tracks voice and text conversations for customer service centers. , including Softbank, totaling $125 million.
• Theta Lake: A compliance and security risk management platform for video conferencing, team chat, and collaboration tools. totaling $50 million.
• Cresta: Real-time intelligence reporting for contact centers. , including Five9 and JP Morgan Chase, totaling $80 million.
• ALLO: A remote workspace tool for whiteboarding, documentation, project management, and video chat. totaling $5 million.

1. Wellness Coach: A digital health platform offering physical, mental, social, and financial coaching services. from .

• Mio: A cross-platform messaging tool allowing teams to send and receive messages from multiple channels, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, Webex by , and Zoom. , including Cisco, totaling $8.7 million.
• Clovers: An interview intelligence platform that accelerates the hiring process. .
• : An in-person and online meeting and events platform. .
• Genesys: A customer experience and call center technology. totaling $580 million.
• DTEN: Unified video-first communications hardware and subscription services. Zoom invested an undisclosed amount in DTEN in October 2021.
• : Video conferencing hardware company. Z.

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What Companies has Zoom Acquired?

As of April 2022, Zoom has acquired three companies.

1. Keybase: a secure messaging and file-sharing service to accelerate the company's plans to develop its end-to-end encryption.
2. Kites: A real-time machine translation technology to "improve meeting productivity and efficiency by providing multi-language translation capabilities for Zoom users."
3. Liminal: An event production software to provide higher-quality online events for its customers.

$100 Million Zoom Apps Fund

In 2021, Zoom launched its to "stimulate the growth of Zoom's ecosystem of Zoom Apps, integrations, developer platform, and hardware."

are third-party add-ons and integrations that provide users with additional functionality, including analytics, broadcasting, CRM, collaboration, and more.

Startups can expect an initial investment of $250k to $2.5 million, with Zoom preferring Seed and Series A rounds.

"I founded Zoom in 2011, nearly ten years ago. Without the support of early investors, Zoom would not be what it is today. 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."

With Zoom's $100 Million App Fund, we're likely to see many more investments and acquisitions in 2022 and beyond.

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