Stream provides APIs that enable product teams to build chat and activity feeds for their applications at scale in a fraction of the time and cost of developing in-house. As organisations in education, healthcare and live events expanded virtual operations and adapted swiftly to move their communities online, many began turning to Stream for help. Within six months, revenue from the company’s chat API increased by 300%.

The accelerated growth ultimately led to the startup seeking – and completing – its Series A financing, led by GGV Capital with participation from 01 Advisors, Knight, Arthur Ventures, and other backers, including Olivier Pomel, CEO of Datadog, and Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of GitHub. Tiffany Luck of GGV Capital also joined the Stream board of directors. Stream is investing heavily in scaling its global team across engineering, sales and marketing.

Today, Stream is working with an Ivy League university to implement live chat into their virtual classes, helping to give a sense of being in the classroom; with healthcare companies such as Brightside Health to provide secure, real-time patient/provider communication; and virtual conferences and events to boost engagement with live chat.

While the pandemic certainly expedited the rise of telemedicine and digital events, “these things should have been online a long time ago,” according to Stream co-founder and CEO Thierry Schellenbach. 

Thierry Schellenbach and Tommaso Barbugli founded Stream in Amsterdam. The company has offices in Amsterdam and in the U.S. in Boulder, Colo. Today, Stream employs 80 people in Amsterdam, Boulder and remote.