Our story
Confrere is bringing simple, secure and privacy-oriented video calling to doctors, psychotherapists and other professionals.
After working four years as founder and head of the video calling service appear.in (now called Whereby), Svein Willassen came to recognize that existing video calling tools were focused either on social settings or company internal use-cases. No good solutions existed for professionals who typically meet their clients one-on-one, like doctors, financial advisers and lawyers.
He joined forces with Dag-Inge Aas, the former Tech Lead of appear.in (now called Whereby), and Ida Aalen, a leading expert in UX design and social media. Confrere was founded in July of 2017.
In September 2018, Confrere raised $1.5 million in seed funding (as reported by TechCrunch). The round was led by Point Nine Capital, with participation from Nordic Makers, The Nordic Web Ventures, and Fathom Capital.
Shortly after its founding, it became clear to Confrere's team that their product was particularly well-suited to physicians. However, embarking on a market in the healthcare sector proved to be full of unique challenges. During the first two years, several of Confrere’s employees, regardless of their role, went to doctors’ offices personally to explain Confrere to them and help them set it up because this was the only way to show them how Confrere could be useful to them. It was also the best way to get to know these customers and to understand their needs and blockers. High in learning value, it was also laborious and expensive, so though we had very loyal customers, we didn’t have very many of them. So we gave attention to the ones we had, continuing to tailor our product based on their feedback.
When COVID-19 came to Norway in March, we saw that the groundwork we had laid was paying off. Confrere's sign-ups and total calls increased by a hundred, and the product proved helpful to doctors in this unexpected time of crisis. In June 2020, Confrere raised $1.0 million in further funding. The round was led by Snö, with participation from Point Nine Capital and other existing investors.
We have maintained our customers by providing them with a superior product that is easy to use, follows all privacy regulations, and has an attentive support team. We continue to improve upon what we have built, motivated by the way we can assist physicians in seeing their patients when it's not possible or preferable to do so in-person, and to keep them at the helm of healthcare in an increasingly digital age.
