A virtual office suitable for the era of remote work…

Lounge is a startup that proposes a virtual office suitable for the era of remote work. That’s because tools like Slack, Zoom, or Teams aren’t enough for companies to build corporate culture and relationships with people they’ve never actually met. In traditional tools, the user’s identity is recorded on message boards and profiles as a picture and a short background, but the lounge conveys a variety of information about the person, such as time zone, weather, location, team member and company event participation status. The lounge also provides tools such as drop-in audio chat and photo sharing so that employees can get to know each other and deepen personal interactions.

In the lounge, employees are represented as virtual desks grouped by teams, projects and even hobbies and interests. This makes it easy to see who is doing what. This virtual desk is similar to a company org chart in roles, but can deliver more personalized information. For example, a small window in the image could show the day and night, tell the time zone, or even know the weather. You can also view employee profile pictures and other data.

In addition to individual desks for employees, the lounge also introduced the concept of a room with multiple employees. Unlike the Slack channel, which focuses only on a topic or project, the room is designed to respond to any purpose, acting as a virtual version of the physical space provided by the existing office. For example, users can join a room that is holding a conversation or whiteboard session, or they can interact virtually with colleagues in a public place, such as a corporate cafeteria.

The room can be locked and unlocked. When you’re immersed in a project, you don’t have to respond to visitors. In this case, visitors can leave private, direct messages in the chat, just like Slack.

There is also a photo sharing function. When you share a photo, for a moment, the photo appears on your virtual desk or elsewhere in the app. This allows you to communicate your personal interests to those around you. These shared photos are organized into one.

Lounge has been in private beta service for some customers since April, but hundreds of customers have already registered. The company has raised $1.2 million in funding from Unusual Ventures and Hustle Fund. Related information can be found here.