From left to right: Splashtop co-founders Rob, Philip, Mark and Thomas
Splashtop has just completed a new financing of US$50 million led by our long-term investor Sapphire Ventures, which brings our valuation to more than US$1 billion!
The journey to the unicorn has not been smooth sailing. We use different products and business models to change our business many twists and turns. However, a common theme is that we always strive to innovate and bring first-class products and services to satisfy our customers.
Splashtop used some key technological innovations and market insights to build an agile, responsive, and solid company.
Splashtop development history:
Splashtop started in 2006 under the name DeviceVM. Because most of us are frustrated with the time it takes Windows to start on the PC, and because we have installed more applications and drivers, Windows has become slower and slower (known as "Windows Rot" ). Therefore, we designed and sold the industry's first browser operating system (OS), which is a secure instant browser operating system that allows users to surf the Internet in less than 5 seconds.
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The operating system product is called Splashtop, and it combines the BIOS "splash" screen (started before the operating system starts) and the word "top" of the word "desktop". Later, Splashtop became the name of the company.
Our instant browser operating system is very popular. From 2007 to 2011, it has been running on more than 300 million PCs and netbooks, including Asus (Express Gate), Acer (Instant View), Hewlett-Packard (QuickWeb), Dell ( Latitude ON), Lenovo (Quick Start), LG (Smart On), Sony (VAIO Quick Web Access), etc.
With the rise of the Linux-based browser operating system, Microsoft launched a low-cost Windows 7 Starter for netbooks and adopted other business strategies to deal with the proliferation of Linux by PC OEMs as a counterattack. The newly introduced Windows 7 starts to boot from the flash memory chip and utilizes Splashtop's patented technology for fast boot. Google also learned a lot from our instant browser operating system, and launched the Chromebook in 2011, four years after innovation.
With the advent of iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices, we realized that we need to establish a new direction to bridge the PC and mobile world, while using our core expertise to deliver high-performance software to satisfy users.
We launched the Splashtop remote desktop for iPhone and iPad, redefining the remote access experience: high performance, zero latency, and the ability to send 1080P video at 30 fps (frames per second).
In May 2011 and June 2011, Splashtop Remote Desktop defeated "Angry Birds" and became the number one paid iPad application on the Apple AppStore. Our products have won many industry awards.
At CES 2012, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang demonstrated Splashtop Remote Desktop on the main stage of CES for remote gaming. A professional gamer used a tablet that supports NVIDIA Tegra to remotely access a gaming PC that supports NVIDIA GeForce, and transmits 1080p games at 60fps with a delay of less than 30ms via Wi-Fi. This is a precursor to the wave of remote gaming initiated by NVIDIA Shield, Google Stadia and other companies.
In the past ten years, Splashtop has become the world's leading provider, which enables people to remotely access computing resources needed for work, study, entertainment, and IT support easily, securely, reliably, and affordably from any device, anytime, anywhere .
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Due to the new crown pneumonia pandemic, Splashtop has changed from important to essential
The COVID-19 pandemic has restricted people's activities and gatherings, triggering a rapid and dramatic shift to remote work and remote learning. According to a survey by 451 Research, before 2020, only 13% of employees are working completely remotely. By May 2020, 65% of companies have established extensive work-from-home policies.
For many employees, students, lecturers, researchers, IT support staff, and others, this shift means finding ways to remotely access critical software and computing resources. This shift has led to a sharp increase in the demand for Splashtop solutions.
Some recent examples of how Splashtop keeps events running during the pandemic:
Staff and students of North American higher education institutions and K-12 schools can use campus computer laboratory resources, including complex software required in professional fields, such as architecture, music, theater design, chemistry, fine arts, communications, biology, clothing design, and Vocational and Technical Education (CTE). They use Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCAD, Revit, Avid Pro Tools and a series of additional 3D design and modeling, animation, video editing, music production and other applications.
News meteorologists can broadcast news and weather forecasts remotely without entering a TV studio.
Hollywood producers and professors at the University of Southern California Film School use iPhone and Splashtop remote access software to record movies remotely.
The Clinical Research Center represents leading pharmaceutical companies in remote research on the new coronary pneumonia vaccine and other drugs.
Splashtop pursues a business strategy that emphasizes both growth and profitability
In the investment world, the "Rule 40" is a way to evaluate the investment prospects of software companies. If the sum of revenue growth and profit margin equals or exceeds 40, the company is considered a potential health investment.
Splashtop has a growth rate of 160% and a profit of 60%-220 in total. This is more than 5 times the 40 rule! We have been profitable since 2015, so this is not a recent development.
The 200+ that meets the rules really makes us stand out among the companies that have achieved unicorn status. We are proud to take this path because it bodes well for our long-term business health.
When we talk about core values, Splashtop speaks freely
If I summarize the core value of Splashtop in one sentence, it is: to make our customers happy on a global scale.
Specifically, there are the following aspects:
Customer Satisfaction: Our 93 Net Promotional Value Score (NPS: Standard for Evaluating Customer Satisfaction) is the best in the industry.
Compare Splashtop with any of our competitors and you will immediately see the difference. We provide first-class solutions at reasonable prices.
Security, reliability and compliance: Our customers trust us to ensure the security of their sensitive and private information. We have more than 10 years of experience and have provided high-performance remote access and remote support solutions for more than 30 million users in hundreds of millions of sessions. We comply with the latest security standards and regulations including GDPR, HIPAA, SOC2, and PCI, and we recently formed a security advisory committee composed of a wide range of experts to help guide us to achieve more stringent security and compliance goals.
There are no hidden buying conditions: the products or prices we are delivering are very transparent: we maintain a consistent and stable price structure that will not increase year by year. And, if something in the world causes us to change any aspect of our business, we will communicate clearly, honestly, and in a timely manner.
High-performance user experience: For us, performance is far more than just the speed value on the data sheet. The performance of our products directly translates into the customer's ability to achieve work, school or entertainment goals. We build our products on the basis of high performance, and we will continue to innovate to continuously improve our performance indicators.
Splashtop attributes our success to our customers
We would like to express our sincere thanks to our customers! We are very happy to receive your letter, and we rely on your feedback so that we can continuously improve our products and services. Thanks to the gospel and support of our customers, we are able to grow rapidly and achieve profitability.
As we move forward, it is generally believed that the trend of working from home and distance learning will continue even after the pandemic restrictions are over. For example, a survey conducted by Gartner Inc. in December 2020 found that 90% of company leaders surveyed intend to allow remote work at least at certain times, even after a new coronary pneumonia vaccine is available. 65% of the reports indicate that they will continue to provide greater flexibility in where, when, and how employees work.
These predictions give us full confidence that Splashtop will continue to flourish for a long time to come.
For a company co-founded by four college friends, this is not bad-30 years later, they are still at Splashtop together and still good friends.
Mark Lee, CEO and Chief Mission Officer, Splashtop