Correction note: Sifted amended this story at 14:57 GMT, 26.02.2024, to reflect a comment from Hopin, clarifying that the liquidation of Hopin Limited in the UK is part of a move to relocate its HQ to the US.
London-based event tech startup Hopin — which shot to a $5.65bn valuation in 2021 just a year after launching — is entering liquidation for its UK parent company as it moves its HQ to Delaware in the US.
A Hopin spokesperson told Sifted that the move is “part of our larger internal corporate consolidation initiative, which involved simplifying our capital structure and operations to drive efficiency across our business.”
They added that Hopin’s “international footprint has not significantly changed and the business continues to grow, as StreamYard, Streamable, and Superwave.”
Last year, the company sold off some of its assets — including its original product, the Hopin events platform — to California-based RingCentral for a reported $50m.
At the same time, its founder Jonny Boufarhat stepped down as CEO, although Hopin continued to operate several of its remaining assets, including livestreaming platform StreamYard.
Shooting to fame
When Hopin raised its $400m Series C at a $5.65bn valuation it became Europe’s fastest growing startup ever.
And the fun didn’t stop there.
In August 2021 it raised a $450m Series D at a $7.75bn valuation, cashing in on a pandemic-fuelled interest in virtual events technology as the whole world sat in lockdown.
Its investors were all all-star cast, including Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, IVP, Coatue, DFJ Growth, Northzone, Salesforce Ventures, Tiger Global, Seedcamp and Accel.
But — as one of the company’s very first investors, Seedcamp’s Reshma Sohoni, told Sifted last year — all that funding was perhaps too much for Hopin’s own good.
“There was a lot of capital that went in, and [neither the company nor the market were ready for that.] When you get too much too fast too quickly, it's a pretty challenging recipe,” Sohoni told the Sifted podcast.
In its liquidations filings Hopin CEO Badri Rajasekar wrote that “the company will be able to pay off its debts in full.”
