Silicon Valleys most talkative investor will bring his enterprise experience and connections to the makers of UberConference. Office cloud communications startup Dialpad today announced that Marc Andreessen is joining its board of directors. The companys hit its stride Andreessen tells TechCrunch. He calls DialPad A complete cloud, mobile business telephone system that makes all the old desk phones and PBX systems just obsolete and unnecessary.
Marcsfund Andreessen Horowitz led Dialpads $15 million Series Bback in 2012 and he became an advisor, while one of the firms board partners, Slingbox founder Blake Krikorian, joined the board. About six months ago Andreessen planned to eventually switch into the board seat with Krikorian becoming an advisor. But Krikorian tragically passed away in August, so Andreessen waited to announce assuming the board seat until now.
Andreessens background founding and running enterprise web hosting service Loudcloud during the dot-com bust could give Dialpad an advantage. The startup now has 25,000 customers includingUber, Motorola Solutions, Netflix, and Hillary Clintonfor its products. Those include Dialpad, which lets businesses replace legacy desk phone systems with calls routed to employees own mobile phones, and UberConference, which simplifies conference calling.
Along with Andreessen, Dialpads board is now composed of the startups founders Craig Walker, John Rector, and Brian Peterson; GV partner Rich Miner; and Amasia partner John Kim. Dialpads$35 million Series C in 2015 brought it to a total of $53 million in funding. Andreessen also serves on the boards ofFacebook,HP, Mode Media, Anki, Honor, Lytro, Mori, OpenGov, Samsara, and TinyCo.
CEO Craig Walker described his excitement about Andreessen One of the smartest guys in the industry or even the world joining Dialpads board. Being able to open any door, giving really good guidance, and having lived the experience personally gives us a lot of leverage he explains.Andreessen notes that The thing with enterprise is some things change a lot, and some thing dont change at all. Its important to know whats what. Dialpad will have to battle a crowd of telephony competitors as well as the status quo.
Already, Walker says Andreessen really helped me to focus on the higher end of the market. As a CEO, you sometimes get drawn to every shiny object. But Andreessen advised that the age of mobile has finally matured to the point that for large companies, its time to ditch all the old stuff, and Dialpad can win lucrative enterprise contracts rather than chasing small businesses.
Its a pivotal moment for enterprise communications, when a skilled sales organization can convince customers to abandon their legacy investment in desk phones and accept a new product that doesnt compromise with the past. That means not only persuading someone to buy software, but teaching them to integrate it while defeating the champions for the alternative within their company.
When you pull that off, thats why you get the big win. Youre the new generation and you end up taking over everything Andreessen concludes. Clearly he sees that opportunity in Dialpad.
