Since the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone’s lives have dramatically altered and, many started to feel disconnected from their loved ones and communities.
Many face-to-face interactions have been replaced by monotonous video calls, and social network feeds have become a hollow proxy for serendipitous conversation in shared spaces.
In this regard, Cosmos Video, a London-based video calling platform, fills the gap, where it creates virtual venues for people to work, hang out and socialise online, unlike other video platforms.
Raised £2 million
Recently, the company raised £2 million in seed funding from Europe’s leading seed investors, LocalGlobe with, participation from Entrepreneur First, Andy Chung and Phillip Moehring (AngelList), and Omid Ashtari (ex-President, Citymapper).
The funding will be used to expand Cosmos Video support for events and meetup groups around interests and hobbies.
Former product lead in Citymapper and TransferWise
Founded by serial entrepreneurs Rahul Goyal and Karan Baweja, who led product teams at Citymapper and TransferWise respectively, Cosmos offers virtual venues by combining game mechanics with video chat to bring back serendipitous interactions.
After choosing their personalised avatar, people can meet up with their colleagues or friends inside a browser-based game.
Through this platform, office colleagues can work collaboratively on tools such as whiteboards, Google documents, and Figma. Right now, the platform is being used in private beta by a select group of companies to host their offices and for social events such as Christmas parties. The company is also receiving requests to host events, meetup groups, and family gatherings.
In the long-term, the team plans to expand the platform to facilitate a variety of different use cases to continue on its mission of enabling human connection in the remote era.
Co-founder Rahul Goyal said: “Once the pandemic hit, we both saw productivity surge in our respective teams but at the same time, people were missing the in-office culture. Cosmos is a way to bring back that human connection that we’re lacking when we spend all day online, by providing a virtual world where you can play a game of Pictionary after work with colleagues or gather round a table to celebrate a friend’s birthday.”
Co-founder Karan Baweja said: “With Cosmos, we’ve striven to create something which captures that magical feeling of being together so people can enjoy live experiences online when they can’t in-person.”
George Henry, partner, LocalGlobe: “We were really impressed with the vision and potential of Cosmos. Now that the video infrastructure is in place, we believe products like Cosmos will enable new forms of live online experiences. Whether it’s virtual socialising or networking events, Cosmos will be central to providing borderless contact and connection between different communities and workplaces in years to come.”
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