Work-focused video messaging platform startup Loom Inc. has raised $130 million in new funding to build on recent momentum, drive product innovation and scale up operations globally.

The Series C round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included ICONIQ Growth, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Coatue Management and General Catalyst. The round was raised on a $1.53 billion valuation, giving Loom “unicorn” status for the first time.

Founded in 2016, Loom is a work communication tool provider that enables its users to get a message across via instantly shareable videos. The company’s tools help users capture, record and narrate a video that can be instantly shared with a link without switching applications or uploading content.

The company’s instantly sharable videos are claimed to be a more efficient, expressive and effective way to communicate that offers an alternative to when a user doesn’t “have time to type a wall of text.” Loom also claims that people retain “an order of magnitude more information via video than text.”

Although video conferencing has come to the fore during the pandemic, Loom is not Zoom in that it does not provide live videoconferencing. “It was a coincidence that it rhymes with Zoom,” Joe Thomas, Loom’s co-founder and chief executive officer, told Bloomberg.

Loom active users have grown to more than 10 million, up 900% year-over-year and its video service is now used by more than 120,000 companies. Loom’s revenue increased 1,100% over the last year, on an undisclosed base. The company adding customers such as Netflix Inc., Atlassian plc, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., Twitter Inc., Olympus Corp., Procter & Gamble Co. and Lacoste S.A.

“The time is now to rethink how work happens, the tools that support it, and how they fit together,” Thomas said in a statement. “This is a change on a generational scale. That begins with embracing new models of working, but also using tools that foster high-performing, sustainable cultures.”

Including the new funding, Loom has raised $203.6 million in venture capital to date, according to data from Crunchbase.

Image: Loom