Online collaborative whiteboard app Miro is in talks to raise funding that would value it at $17bn, making it the latest start-up to capitalise on pandemic demand for software tools that help remote teams work together.
Iconiq Capital, an investment firm that manages money for wealthy entrepreneurs and other investors, is in talks to invest $400m in Miro, said people briefed on the matter.
The deal, which is expected to be completed in the coming weeks, could total as much as $900m when pre-existing shares purchased by other investors are included, one of the people said.
Miro has recently received offers from investors that are willing to value the company as high as $20bn, said two people briefed on the negotiations. Iconiq and Miro declined to comment on the fundraising.
The investment would add to a streak of high-priced deals for software start-ups that focus on workplace collaboration and online design, areas that have financially benefited from remote working during the pandemic.
In September, investors valued the Australian design software company Canva at $40bn following a $200m round of funding. Figma, another competitor, raised $200m in June that valued the start-up at $10bn.
Mike Fasciani, a senior research director at Gartner, estimated that there had been a 10-fold increase in interest in visual collaboration software in the past 18 months.
“There is this tension around the return to the office space, whether or not some of these cloud-based applications persist,” Fasciani said. “Ultimately, hybrid work is the model that is going to persist, and in that construct you need a shared virtual surface.”
Founded in Russia in 2011, Miro makes free and subscription-based software products that allow teams to collaborate on projects using shared, visual workspaces. Based in Amsterdam and San Francisco, the company said its products have more than 25m users, including 95 per cent of Fortune 100 companies.
Miro, which raised $50m in a financing led by Iconiq in April last year, is making more than $300m in annual recurring revenues, a three-fold increase compared to last year, said one person briefed on the numbers. The company said last year it was profitable, without providing details.
Visual collaboration start-ups face competition from larger public companies such as Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google. Salesforce, which acquired the messaging company Slack in a $27.7bn deal this year, has also outlined broad ambitions to create the “business operating system” for workers.
The new round of investment in Miro comes as public software companies have stumbled in recent trading. Shares in DocuSign, which allows for documents to be signed virtually, fell more than 40 per cent on Friday after the company reported sales numbers that disappointed investors.
The BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud index sank 3.9 per cent in the past week, leaving it up 8.8 per cent for the past year.
