Open source Calendly rival Cal.com raises $25 million

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Cal.com, the company behind an open source scheduling platform and Calendly alternative, has raised $25 million in a series of A funding rounds and launched what it calls an “app store ahead of time” so developers can build their own apps on top of Cal.com. to build. .com’s scheduling infrastructure.

Originally founded last year as Calendso, the company rebranded as Cal.com in September in addition to the full product launch, as it sought to challenge the well-funded Calendly, which now claims a high valuation of $3 billion. Late last year, Cal.com raised a $7.4 million seed funding round from a slew of notable backers, including YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley.

The problem Cal.com and its ilk are trying to solve is one that millions around the world are familiar with: endless emails, messages, and phone calls trying to find a convenient time for multiple people to meet ( online or IR). And the more stakeholders involved across regions and time zones, the harder it is to find a place where everyone can meet to discuss that critical project update.

To address this problem, Cal.com offers what it calls “scheduling infrastructure for absolutely everyone,” aimed at everyone from fitness instructors to companies like Klarna and Deel. At the most basic level, meeting organizers use Cal.com to share a scheduling link with invitees, who can then choose from multiple time slots — and the time slot that anyone can create is added to each attendee’s calendar.

Cal.com in action

The platform includes a range of pre-built integrations for things like Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Zoom and Stripe, while an open API allows users to integrate Cal.com with their own systems. And one of several pricing plans is an enterprise tier, with features like single sign-on (SSO), audit logs, and an admin console.

Control and customization

While there are clear similarities to Calendly’s, the main distinguishing feature of Cal.com is its open source credential – it promises businesses complete data sovereignty and digital autonomy. Available on GitHub, Cal.com gives companies control over all their data through self-hosting, which can be especially important for highly regulated industries such as healthcare or government agencies. A white-label offering also allows companies to manage the look-and-feel of their Cal.com deployment.

In addition, if businesses don’t want the hassle of self-hosting, they can take advantage of Cal.com’s fully hosted service.

In addition to the Series A increase, Cal.com has also introduced a number of new features, including the release of its new API, dynamic booking links, native video conferencing functionality, and — arguably the biggest update of all — a new app store.

Cal.com app store

With the app store, the company has essentially revamped the way apps work within the Cal.com platform — it now follows a more “modular and extensible architecture,” the company said, making it easier for developers to build apps for Cal. com that everyone else can use too.

With another $25 million in the bank, Cal.com said it will use its fresh cash injection to help developers launch new apps for its app store and become “the best developer platform for building anything and everything over time” – this could be telehealth apps, productivity apps, marketplaces and everything in between.

Cal.com’s One Round series was led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, with participation from OSS Capital, Obvious Ventures, Daily.co and countless angel investors.

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This post Open source Calendly rival Cal.com raises $25 million

was original published at “https://venturebeat.com/2022/04/18/open-source-calendly-rival-cal-com-raises-25m/”