CrossLoop Raises $6 Million for Development of Its Elegant Help Marketplace

Today the screen sharing software CrossLoop is announcing that it has raised $6 million in series B round of funding led by Venrock. Two new personalities join CrossLoop Board of Directors - a partner at Venrock Richard Moran and Andre Haddad, CEO of Shopping.com and prior SVP of product at eBay (Shopping.com is owned by eBay).

We have covered CrossLoop here on Profy before and I myself have used the software a few times when I needed to help a less tech-savvy friend figure out how to use this or that piece of software.

What CrossLoop software does is very simple and includes sharing everything on a user’s desktop with another user who can provide technical support or guidance. And while this particular part is nothing actually unique and we already have a few desktop sharing utilities available on the market, earlier this year CrossLoop launched the Help Marketplace which is definitely a unique place to connect technical support specialists (or any expert in any software or hardware-related field) with those in need of expert help and advice.

Currently the marketplace has over 10 thousand rated experts that provide support for various software and hardware-related issues. An average rate at the marketplace is $50 per hour which is certainly a fair price for getting support in fixing any problem you are experiencing on demand without having to wait endless hours to get the support needed urgently.

CrossLoop reports 50 million of help minutes provided to date by experts working in the marketplace which equals to almost $42 million paid by consumers to experts at the average rate claimed by CrossLoop (but my estimate can be wrong since from what I’ve seen it looks like experts may choose to provide help for free as well).

Right now the marketplace still seems to be in the early stage of development and lacks, for example, an integrated payment solution. Once the functionality is ready, CrossLoop will earn a percentage of the amount paid by a user to the helper - thus making a revenue for the company. I think it is obvious that CrossLoop has come up with a very elegant solution to having a business model even when the application itself is free and this elegant solution definitely deserves this new round of funding to continue developing and marketing the solutions.