Teamflow wants to make virtual collaboration feel more like the office

As head of product for Uber’s JUMP Starter division, Flo Crivello noticed his team struggling to collaborate when working across multiple locations.

His solution became Teamflow — a customizable virtual office platform that just raised $35m, per Forbes.

Teamflow is gamifying virtual collaboration…

…with a 2D office floor plan. Users appear as bubbles and move around like a video game, allowing for spontaneous hallway run-ins and frictionless collaboration.

Crivello believes this sense of presence can boost morale and productivity,  citing a research study from MIT that found:

• 35% of variation in a team’s performance can be attributed to the number of face-to-face exchanges
• Social time is “critical to team performance, often accounting for more than 50% of positive changes in communication patterns”

Early customers are loving it, reportedly using the product an average of 5 hours a day, 6 days a week.

The virtual HQ space is heating up

Startups like Gather, Branch, and Outreach have raised money to build virtual office capabilities, validating the need for better remote work tools.

Crivello believes Teamflow’s focus on productivity, with in-app chat and collaborative whiteboards, separate it from the pack.

If successful, Crivello and team may end up creating a virtual office that’s harder to leave than “Fortnite.”