Image: Hopin
CEO Badri Rajasekar said the unicorn’s international operations have not significantly changed and the business continues to ‘exceed’ growth expectations.
Hopin, the London-based tech events start-up, is moving to the US and its UK company is being liquidated.
In an announcement yesterday (26 February), CEO Badri Rajasekar said that the headquarters of Hopin’s parent company is being voluntarily moved from the UK to the US as part of what he calls a “larger strategic corporate consolidation initiative” put in place last year.
“We decided to make this shift to simplify our capital structure, focus operations on our livestreaming and video hosting businesses and drive efficiency across our company,” he wrote in the announcement.
“As stated, the parent company and headquarters of the Hopin group is now based in the US. With this reorganisation, Hopin Ltd (UK entity), is now a non-trading company and is in the process of being wound up and liquidated.”
Rajasekar added that the tech unicorn’s international operations have not significantly changed and the business continues to “exceed” growth expectations.
Last August, Hopin sold its events and session product line to communications platform RingCentral while co-founder Johnny Boufarhat, who was CEO of the company at the time, stepped down and was replaced by Rajasekar.
Please read an update from our CEO regarding the Hopin Ltd (UK entity) liquidation:
TLDR; We are moving our HQ to the US.
Thank you.
Statement: https://t.co/ZufdIA7IY5 pic.twitter.com/pK1FbCvDq7
— Hopin (@Hopin) February 26, 2024
Hopin said that the intention of the deal – the financial details of which were not disclosed – was to help the company’s acquired products reach “millions more users” and allow Hopin to focus on “helping people connect meaningfully beyond geographical boundaries”.
The UK company launched its virtual events platform in early 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic was spreading around the world. In a blogpost, Boufarhat said at the time that demand for virtual events tech “exploded overnight” – so much so that it was valued at $5.65bn less than two years after it was founded.
Since then, Hopin has attracted a lot of VC attention.
It raised $400m in its Series C round in 2021, led by Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst. This swiftly followed its $125m Series B round in November 2020, where Tiger Global Management and Salesforce Ventures backed the company among others.
The company began an acquisition spree in 2021 when it acquired Streamable, a video hosting platform with 5,000 paying customers, and Jamm, which had raised just a small amount of venture capital funding.
Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
