Zoom is building on the momentum it’s gained over the past year with the launch of a $100 million fund to advance its third-party ecosystem.
During 2020, Zoom’s business customer base grew by 470.33 percent. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom’s business customer base had grown 217.44 percent across the two years between January 2018 and 2019.
Third-party app developers have been sharing in the company’s success through Zoom Apps, which were first announced during the Zoomtopia 2020 conference.
“I founded Zoom in 2011, nearly ten years ago. Without the support of early investors, Zoom would not be what it is today,” said Eric S. Yuan, CEO and founder of Zoom. “What I’ve learned over the past year is that we need to keep meetings productive and fun.”
The new Zoom Apps Fund will see companies receive initial investments of between $250,000 and $2.5 million to build solutions that will become core to how Zoom customers meet, communicate, and collaborate.
“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,” added Yuan.
Last month, Zoom also released its Video SDK to help developers leverage the “scale-ready performance” of the communications platform to create new experiences for their users. Among the types of apps Zoom suggested using its SDK for include social, gaming, and retail.
Zoom claims that dozens of Zoom Apps are currently in development. The new fund should help to bring more visions to market and help other third-party developers share in Zoom’s success.
More information about the Zoom Apps Fund can be found here.
