According to foreign media reports, chat platforms like slack have been changing the rules of the game when it comes to work communication applications that business users want and expect. On Wednesday, a company that aims to change its goals again through an integrated, open source alternative announced some funding to boost its growth.Rocket.Chat Is a start-up company with the same name platform based on open source. Banks, U.S. Navy, non-governmental organizations and other large and small organizations are using the platform to build and run any kind of secure virtual communication services from one place.

They can include not only team chats, but also customer service, collaboration platforms that cover your employees and external partners, school classrooms, meetings, and more - the company has raised $19 million.

The company plans to use the funds to not only continue to increase more customers, but also expand the functions of the platform, including more security functions, the way to use services on the joint blockchain architecture, market applications, the choice of robots, as well as more integration of social media and channel wide customer services, and possibly virtual activity facilities.

With more and more business interactions moving towards virtual, this is basically like Rocket.Chat In this way, the company that builds the virtual communication platform opens a door and integrates more and more functions into its work.

There are four leading investors in this round of financing: valor capital group, greycroft, monashees and NEA, and e.ventures, graphene ventures, onevc and DGF are also involved. The port Alegre, Brazil based start-up, incorporated in Delaware, has raised $27 million so far.

Rocket.Chat It did not disclose the valuation of its current round of financing, but this was based on some significant growth last year. The start-up currently has 16 million registered users in 150 countries, of which 8 million are monthly active users. Of the 16 million users, 11.3 million registered for the service in the past six months. The company says it is currently installed on about 845000 servers and has more than 1500 developers working on its platform. Rocket.Chat The financing and expansion of business are part of the greater focus on open source platforms as a whole.

The promise of open source in the enterprise IT world has always been that it provides a platform to customize a service to adapt to how relevant organizations want to use it, and provides tools to ensure that it is strong enough in terms of security, scalability, etc. for use in the business environment.

Over the years, with the increasingly complex expectations and needs of IT services, ready-made applications may not be able to meet the requirements, which has become a great business opportunity.

Rocket.Chat Positioning itself as an integrated super store to meet all communication needs, enterprises can integrate their services in any way according to their own purposes. It can be hosted and managed by customers themselves, or it can be used as a cloud based SaaS. Its pricing ranges from free (minimum self hosting service) to $4 per user per month, or higher, depending on which services customers want to have, whether it is hosted, and the monthly usage of the platform.

As you can see from the simulation, its basic platform looks a bit like slack. But if it is used for Omni channel communication of customer service, for example, users can Rocket.Chat To build a platform in which users can communicate with any other platform, which may be used to communicate with customers.

Its work collaboration platform starts from Rocket.Chat The basic chat interface starts, but also allows users to integrate reminders and links from other apps they often use, as well as video calls. Then, these and others build on Rocket.Chat The functions on can interact with each other - for example, handing bills to an internal technical support team in customer service - or can be used alone.

The idea is that by providing a version that can be hosted and managed by organizations themselves, it gives them more privacy and control over electronic messages. Its thousands of customers reflect an interesting mix of organizations looking for such solutions.

However, this flexibility does not always work Rocket.Chat It's a great advantage. Arguably, the list also appears to include organizations at the other end who want to limit their information to a very specific audience. Isis was originally hosted and running Rocket.Chat To spread information. Engel said it's not something the company supports, and the company works with the authorities to close such users as much as possible, but it's the result of the way the service is built.

"If they run it on their own Rocket.Chat Server, we can't track usage, "he said. "Used by the U.S. Navy Rocket.Chat There is a reason. That's because we can't track and know what they're doing. Good or bad, it's isolated from any external influence. " He added that the company has a policy that if there are illegal organizations using its SaaS version, these will be taken with the cooperation of the authorities. "But like Linux, if you download and run it on your own computer Rocket.Chat So obviously, it's beyond our reach. "

"In today's environment, organizations must have a secure communication platform to engage with the team internally, communicate with customers and partners externally, and connect with a secure, interest based community." Dylan Pearce, a partner at greycroft, said in a statement. “ Rocket.Chat The world-class management team and open source community lead the innovation of the industry and provide a communication platform that can serve everyone on earth. "