Is the Whiteboard Obsolete?

Good morning! Today on the Daily Stack we’re looking at the future of remote work for creative teams and the businesses built to support those teams.

          

While tech startups had an early advantage in remote work set-ups, other employers are now weighing the costs and benefits of greater WFH flexibility and the onboarding of fully remote employees. They are doing so, even while considering that the psychological ramifications of the shelter-in-place, global pandemic version of remote work potentially offset some of the benefits to remote working. Architectural firm Gensler, for example, reported seeing a drop of about 37% in team collaboration from 2019 to 2020.

But with vaccines bringing us closer to a new normal, employees are hopeful they will maintain the positive psychological and creative benefits of remote life and are pointing to a whole host of collaborative software to make it possible. These collaboration companies are challenging the idea that we need to be in the same room to make magic happen and promising a greater ROC – return on collaboration.

Three private companies in digital collaboration

• InVision App is a product design and development platform currently used by 7MM team members to ideate, prototype, and test new ideas. In the last year, the company added 2MM new users and experienced 115MM daily active users through its whiteboard integration with Microsoft Teams. The company last raised a Series F in 2018, bringing its valuation to $1.9BN.

• Figma came out of stealth mode last month with a whiteboard tool called FigJam. The tool features all the things you’d expect and one you wouldn’t, with its audio message component, breaking up the need for Zoom call after Zoom call. A16Z led a $50MM Round D last April.

• Miro is another collaborative whiteboard tool but with a slightly more glamorous cap table and excellent timing. Angel investor & basketball legend Steph Curry and prolific Dutch investor Baz Godska took part in the $50MM Series B round led by ICONIQ Capital, just after the pandemic hit.