Teambition, a team collaboration platform, has secured US$5 million of Series A funding led by IDG and followed by Vangoo Capital Partners. The new investment will be used in expanding its business across Asia, as well as building R&D team, according to Qi Junyuan, CEO and founder of the company. Teambition has received 7-digit RMB funding from Gobi Partners last year.
Teambition is a software as a service (Saas) platform that provides products and services to foster team collaboration and project management. It enables users to collaborate on projects and share or edit documents in real time across departments, continents, and business applications. Users can share their thoughts with project members and learn what’s happening in real time. All project files are saved in the cloud, so members can view and discuss them at any time.
Teambition Interface
Upon the announcement of the new funding, Teambition also released two new product lines: Talk, an IM tool for modern teams which also integrates several other SaaS service, and Today, a well-designed calendar for businessmen. Both of the apps are available on both iOS and Android.
Talk adopts a WeChat-style interface, helping users to pick up the service quickly as most Chinese people already know how to use WeChat. It also integrates information from other platforms like Weibo, email, RSS, and GitHub. Today allows users to manage their schedules in an orderly way. Both services are based on Teambition’s Open Platform which will be soon available to all developers.
Screenshot of Today
Together with its namesake productivity tool Teambition, the startup’s three product lines are dedicated to solving three key business problems: following up project progress, internal communication, and time management. The accounts and back-end data of the three products are integrated together.
Teambition is now used in around a million projects in various industries, including TMT, advertising, modern manufacturing, and education. Although the service was originally favored by small teams, it is now also used by in many large companies, said Qi. Its new enterprise plan, featuring unified management among projects inside one company, was well received by clients in large enterprises, he added.
In addition to the Chinese version, Teambition recently started offering English and Japanese language versions, as there has been a growing amount of foreign adopters.
Teambition was founded in 2011 by Qi Junyuan, a post-90s generation entrepreneur. The startup is based in Beijing and Shanghai, and expects to expand its team from 40 to 80 employees in the near future.
There are several startups eyeing the enterprise social network or software sector in China, such as Mingdao, a Yammer-like service with features tailored to Chinese businesses, and Fxiaoke, China’s answer to Salesforce. The rising market has also attracted internet giants. WeChat rolled out a solution for enterprise communication to convert its existing use base, while NetEase also launched Youdao Cloud Cooperation via its sub-brand Youdao to tap the market.
Editing by Mike Cormack (@bucketoftongues)