Butter, a startup registered in Denmark however working absolutely distant, is building an “all-in-one” platform for planning and working virtual workshops.
Offering video software program and different options devoted to workshopping, the concept is to pull individuals away from utilizing extra generic instruments, resembling Zoom and Microsoft Teams, which, arguably, aren’t nicely suited to workshops. It’s additionally an concept that might be welcomed by many distant staff trapped in a groundhog day stuffed with back-to-back Zooms — and one which has already attracted enterprise capital.
Backing Butter’s seed spherical of $2.75 million, which is being disclosed as we speak, is Project A. Others investing within the burgeoning startup are Des Traynor, co-founder and chief technique officer of Intercom (amongst different angels). It provides to $440,000 beforehand raised by a mixture of fairness funding from Morph Capital, enterprise debt from The Danish Growth Fund and grants from Innovation Fund Denmark.
Butter co-founder and CEO Jakob Knutzen tells me that workshop facilitators, resembling technique consultants, HR trainers and design sprinters, usually have two issues: technical overload and an absence of power within the workshops.
The former consists of having to juggle too many instruments wanted to plan, run and disseminate a workshop, coupled with unintuitive interfaces and an incapacity to arrange components of a workshop upfront. The lack of “energy” when delivering workshops nearly is possible a tougher nut to outline after which crack, however anybody who has taken half in an on-line workshop has possible skilled it.
“We solve these in two ways,” says Knutzen, “[with an] all-in-one tool that helps facilitators prepare, run and debrief the workshop in one place, [and] a delightful design that supports facilitators in delivering a more human experience… 90% of our users comment on this; Zoom fatigue is real”.
Image Credits: Butter
You get began in Butter by creating and establishing a “room,” together with optionally creating an agenda, polls and timers, in addition to numerous customisation, resembling a welcome web page, picture and (sure) music. Next, you invite workshop contributors through an robotically generated hyperlink that may simply be shared.
On the day, contributors be part of immediately of their browser and the workshop chief runs the workshop utilizing the agenda they created as the primary guiding level. Butter additionally helps numerous third-party integrations, resembling for white boarding, be aware taking, and so forth. After the session, facilitators can entry a “recap” within the room overview with a chat transcript, recording and ballot outcomes, and so forth.
Adds the Butter CEO: “Down the line, we’ll make this even more ‘full workshop flow’ — [including] more of the planning part, having a full pre-workshop space for participants, building out the post-workshop experience, etc. But for now, we’ve doubled down on making the ‘during’ part flow smoothly”.
To that finish, Butter is but to monetise, however will undertake a SaaS mannequin. Meanwhile, Knutzen cites opponents as established however generalist platforms, resembling Zoom and Teams; legacy specialist platforms, resembling Adobe Connect and Webex for Training; and different startups making an attempt to remedy the identical drawback (e.g. Toasty.ai, circl.es and VideoFacilitator).
“We differentiate ourselves by being laser focused on workshops,” he says.
