KTH alumni Erik Skogetun and Jonathan Rintala saw a gap in the market for an interactive and user-friendly event platform and founded Univid.
After a flying start for the company as the official supplier for Almedalen and with Facebook among its first customers, the company is now raising 8 million to continue its expansion.
Univid founders Erik Skogetun and Jonathan Rintala
In 2019, before digital meetings had become a part of everyone’s everyday life, the SaaS company Univid was founded by two KTH students Erik Skogetun and Jonathan Rintala with the ambition to digitise lectures.
But the idea quickly grew bigger than that. When the founders discovered the potential of their product, they would soon leave the school world behind to face the digital event world with Facebook as the company’s first major customer.
– We quickly realised that the market was really crying out for good solutions. Today, companies across the Nordic region use our platform to create interactive and beautiful events and webinars in under a minute that can be customised by the user directly in the browser,” says Erik Skogetun.
Backed by well-known investors
In Univid’s first funding round, the company is backed by several well-known investors in the video segment, including venture capital firms Spintop Ventures, JNE Invest and Quinary, as well as multiple angel investors with extensive experience in the industry.
Finn Persson, partner at Spintop Ventures:
– Fifteen years ago, I was an investor and board member in the company that is now Google Meet and that also helped create the WebRTC standard. Since then, I and the rest of the Spintop team have actively followed the development of web video communications. We are excited to now invest in a new innovative service that takes interactive digital meeting experiences to the next level – built on WebRTC by the new generation of communications technology entrepreneurs.
Events that engage
With features such as quizzes, polls and the ability to earn points based on the level of interaction, Univid offers a unique way to create experiences tailored to the user’s needs.
– People who come to us are tired of complicated and time-consuming event platforms. They need something that is easy to set up and a platform they can identify with and feel confident about,” says Erik Skogetun.
Events created using the platform have seen a boost in interaction compared to other digital event solutions. It has resulted in several thousand reactions and hundreds of chat messages, from just a few hundred participants.
– We want to get away from rigid, formal and downright boring experiences; to instead let the host create engaging, creative and fun events that participants remember – that’s Univid, says Jonathan Rintala.
Will accelerate with the help of the investment
In 2021, Univid was the official platform provider for Almedalsveckan 2021 with over 700 digital events over four days. With virtual meetings getting a big boost during the pandemic, the company is now seeing high demand both inside and outside Europe.
The platform and video technology are in place. The plan going forward is to continue to optimise and expand functionality, including interaction and networking. Today, Univid consists of three people, but with a newly replenished cash flow, Univid has made it its goal to accelerate its growth journey.
– We have validated the market thoroughly and now it’s time to add more talented developers and sales people to the team to meet the high demand, concludes Jonathan Rintala.
Univid went through Sting Incubate 2021.
