Exclusive: Salesforce Invests In Video Messaging Startup (And Skype Rival) VSee

VSee, a video collaboration service provider, has received a capital injection from Salesforce, TechCrunch has learned. The amount was not disclosed, but we've been informed that the investment amounted to multiple millions of dollars'.

Coinciding with the investment announcement, the company today announced the upcoming release of One-Click Collaboration', which it calls a no install experience' that instantly starts a rich video collaboration session between distributed users.

VSee offers a service that supports multiparty video calling, application/desktop sharing and file transfers over the Web. See video below for a demo.

The startup's CEO, Milton Chen, says this concept of One-click Collaboration' combines the scalability and performance of p2p approaches such as Skype with the no-install simplicity of web technologies like Flash, overcoming the limitations of both.

The service will be released for general availability in July 2011.

The company says it already provides services to more than 6,000 enterprises worldwide, including Shell, Intel, Primerica, U.S. Navy SEALs and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

It currently only runs on Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

VSee was founded in 2008 following Chen's human-computer interaction PhD research at Stanford University. Aside from Salesforce, In-Q-Tel has invested in the business.

Also worth noting: Chen is one of the authors of the XMPP video standard.

Earlier this year, Salesforce announced that it had acquired DimDim, a web conferencing service, for $31 million in cash.

CrunchBase Information

VSee Lab

Salesforce

Information provided by CrunchBase

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