Wurkr: Creating virtual workplace spaces

By Srinath Srinivasan

Video calling applications have come to be a norm today for any enterprise. A lot of video calling solutions present meetings and private hyperlinks for employee collaboration, but the expertise has been restricted to video calls, texts and screen sharing remains. Wurkr aims to resolve this lack of expertise on the web by building a virtual workplace space exactly where staff can co-work, interact, pay a visit to rooms and move from one spot to one more with their colleagues just like in a brick-and-mortar workplace.

As the world continues to operate on hybrid working models and work from anyplace has taken off in the last one year, the platform has seen more than 2,98,000 customers register with them. “The pandemic indeed drove our business last year but even before that for someone working from anywhere or while travelling, video calls never provided the in-office experience. Today, we have solutions that are largely overlooked by big players in the market, which offer the in-office experience,” says Annil Chandel, CEO, Wurkr.

Depending on the strategy the customers select, the platform delivers them a fixed quantity of rooms which can be used to set up an workplace. “When you are in an office, you can look around, see where your colleagues are. You can see which room is free or who is in those rooms. We aim to recreate the same surroundings online,” says Chandel.

The startup aims to let customers make their personal virtual workplace space, wherein one will be in a position to style, arrange and strategy their personal buildings and move things significantly like a virtual reality world. “By providing a virtual office space to conduct those meetings online, we indirectly save travelling costs, remove tiredness and stress from employees and reduce environmental pollution,” says Chandel.

The startup has closed a seed funding of $1.4 million throughout the pandemic. A lot of that funding has been invested in R&ampD. “Our development teams in Bengaluru have developed the virtual spaces,” says Chandel. “We will soon roll out AI based receptionists wherein an employee can walk into a virtual office and interact with this virtual person just like a real time office. We also aim to consolidate various branches of a business spread across geographies into virtual buildings so one employee from one branch can walk into another branch virtually and experience that particular office space,” he adds.

The startup plans to raise more cash to innovate and expand whilst the demand for virtual communication channels maintain escalating. “There is a behavioural shift happening. Organisations themselves are investing in products like ours,” he says.

The startup also recognises the increasing quantity of competitors and huge players who are currently there and does not want to get lost in the noise. “It is all about experience. We can segment our customers and educate them very much but it is only when they use our product first hand, they are going to pay. That is our immediate focus,” says Chandel.

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz