Reducing app development from months to hours: Our most recent investment in Stream

We are excited to announce our recent investment in the $15M Series A round of Stream, together with GGV Capital and Dick Costolo (former CEO of Twitter). Stream’s mission is to provide organizations with the tools to offer superb customer experience through online applications with minimal development efforts. Stream is founded by Thierry Schellenbach (CEO) and Tommaso Barbugli (CTO) and employs over 60 people, who work remote or in their offices in Boulder, Colorado and Amsterdam.

As every company strives to become a tech company, an endless array of software is required to fuel their growth. Meanwhile, many companies struggle to build all their software from scratch. These days, software must be versatile to support various platforms such as the web, Android and iOS while not compromising on security and privacy of user data. Moreover, the bar for user experience is high, requiring companies to hire dedicated teams to work on data collection, analysis and upgrades. This raises the development costs for companies considerably, which is further accelerated by the scarcity of IT talent.

Thierry and Tommaso found a solution by developing APIs for creating activity feeds and chatting capabilities in a reliable, scalable, and secure way. These building blocks drastically reduce development time from months to hours, while maintaining the personalization required for each business. Essentially, Stream is providing the feeds and chat foundation for apps like Stripe has provided the foundation for payments. Stream is currently doing this for numerous customers, powering experiences for over half a billion users.

The cloud component market enables companies to scale up their digital efforts significantly and will therefore benefit from the ever accelerating digital transformation (further fueled by the outbreak of Covid-19). We expect that the cloud component market may become the next trillion-dollar software market.

Investment Thesis

Stream has the right team and demonstrated product market fit to become a major player in the cloud component market. Our investment thesis was driven by:

• The huge market potential and the accelerating digital transformation of nearly every company across the globe.
• The ‘CTO-turned-to-Co-Founders’ backgrounds of Thierry and Tommaso. The tech-savviness of the team are vital for Stream to capitalize on the opportunities within the cloud component market. The remaining management team consists of experienced members that have a proven track record in growing software companies. Altogether, this makes it a stellar team.
• The company has a replicable sales model, as it has shown some tremendous traction in the past 12-18 months.
• Stream is an excellent example of a company that fits seamlessly in our investment profile. The company has a low-touch acquisition model, that enables it to capture a significant market share within a short timeframe.

As such, we are happy to join Stream’s journey alongside some of the most respected investors in this industry!

More information about Stream can be found on their website: https://getstream.io/.