Vowel Raises $13.5M to Tackle Meeting Fatigue | Virtual Meeting Platform

The Growing Problem of Ineffective Meetings

As work environments have become increasingly distributed, particularly over the last 18 months, meetings are facing a crisis. Vowel CEO Andy Berman suggests a trend toward what he terms “death by meeting” is emerging.

His company, a provider of a virtual meeting platform, recently secured $13.5 million in venture capital funding. This investment aims to enhance the utility of meetings – before, during, and after they occur.

Introducing Vowel: A Meeting Operating System

Vowel is introducing a comprehensive meeting operating system. It features tools such as real-time transcription, integrated agendas, note-taking capabilities, and action item tracking.

Furthermore, the platform offers meeting analytics and searchable, on-demand recordings. Vowel operates on a freemium model, with a business plan launching this fall at $16 per user monthly. This plan will include advanced integrations, enhanced security features, and administrative controls.

Investment and Key Backers

The Series A funding round was spearheaded by David Hornik of Lobby Capital. Existing investors Amity Ventures and Box Group also participated, alongside a group of individual investors.

Notable individual investors include Calendly CEO Tope Awotona, Intercom co-founder Des Traynor, Slack VP Ethan Eismann, former Yammer executive Viviana Faga, former InVision president David Fraga, and Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest.

The Origins of Vowel

Before founding Vowel, Berman was a co-founder of the baby monitor company Nanit. The challenges of communication within globally dispersed teams at Nanit sparked the initial concept.

In 2018, the company sought a solution for both synchronous and asynchronous meetings, recognizing the complexities of managing multiple time zones. Inspired by Nanit’s continuous video streaming baby monitors, the idea for Vowel began to take shape, predicated on the belief that remote work would become widespread.

The Pandemic's Impact and Future Outlook

Berman noted that initial perceptions of their idea were skeptical, but the pandemic dramatically shifted the landscape. “As we now go back to hybrid work, we see this as an opportunity,” he stated to TechCrunch.

A 2017 Harvard Business Review report indicated that executives devoted 23 hours weekly to meetings. Berman currently estimates the average employee spends half their workweek in meetings.

Vowel's Core Functionality

Vowel aims to integrate components from tools like Slack, Figma, and GitHub into the meeting experience. The platform records audio and video, allowing for pausing and annotation.

Users can add notes directly to the recording, and a real-time transcription facilitates easy catch-up for those who arrive late or were unable to attend. Post-meeting, recordings are shareable, and a search function enables users to locate specific discussions or topics.

Growth Plans and Beta Success

The new funding will support expansion of Vowel’s teams in product development, design, and engineering. The company intends to hire up to 30 new employees over the next year.

Following the conclusion of its beta testing phase, Vowel has accumulated a waitlist of 10,000 users. A public launch is scheduled for this fall, according to Berman.

The Evolving Landscape of Workplace Tools

While workplace productivity and communication tools are well-established, their importance has surged as homes have transitioned into offices.

Existing solutions have taken varied approaches – focusing on video conferencing, audio, or meeting management plugins. Berman contends that a key area of unmet need is the seamless integration of meetings into existing workflows, which is where Vowel’s “meeting OS” differentiates itself.

The Future of Knowledge Management in Meetings

“Our goal is to make meetings more inclusive and worthwhile, which includes the prep, the meeting and the follow-up,” Berman explained. “We see the future will be about knowledge management, so the difference between what we are doing is ensuring you can catch up quickly and keep that knowledge base.”

A Garner report predicts that 75% of workplace meetings will be recorded by 2025, a trend Vowel is actively addressing.

Investor Perspective and Vowel's Potential

David Hornik, founding partner at Lobby Capital, learned about Vowel through Amity Ventures. Having observed the challenges of distributed teams at GitLab, where he serves on the board, he recognized the potential of Vowel’s solution.

Hornik quickly invested in Vowel, as his firm prioritizes platform businesses capable of transforming industries. He likened Vowel to companies like Splunk, GitLab, and Bill.com, which have revolutionized their respective sectors.

He believes Vowel’s vision for a meeting OS has the power to fundamentally change a meeting space that has remained largely stagnant for decades.

“This was quickly obvious to me because my day is meetings — an eight-Zoom day is a normal day — I just wish I could remember everything,” Hornik said. “Speaking with early customers using the product, when I asked them what they would do if this ever went away, the first thing they said was ‘cry,’ and, because there was no alternative, would return to Zoom or other tools, but it would be a big setback.”