Is there room for yet another player in the video conferencing space? Anshuman Maini, founder of Konspot, sure thinks so. Platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams may have successfully become staples of both private and professional online communications during the Covid-19 lockdowns, but that’s not to say that this arena is fully optimised, particularly in the Middle East.
“The current value of the video conference market is estimated to be around $200 million. With the right infrastructure, we believe [it] has the potential to reach a value of 1 billion dollars,” explains Maini.
Simply put, such an infrastructure consists of servers supporting cloud-based solutions by the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, and there just isn’t enough of them in the region. This is where Maini sees an opening for Konspot. “This presents an opportunity for us to establish ourselves as the leading authority in this space and be the first movers in this region,” he says, further explaining that “Our aim is to provide a secure and reliable communication platform that meets the needs of businesses here. By doing so, we are positioning ourselves as pioneers in this emerging market.”
Konspot differentiates itself by seamlessly integrating its audio, video, and screen-sharing functionalities into any application’s or website’s content management systems (CMS) without requiring coding, maintenance, or a cloud infrastructure setup. In Maini’s own words, it acts much like a chameleon. “Our logo doesn’t even appear on people’s systems once it’s been integrated in the CMS. You can’t see us,” he explains. No extra hardware is required and the solution is device independent, working on desktop, mobile, or web, allowing users to go to market immediately.
Most importantly, Konspot ensures data security and privacy compliance with GDPR, PCI, DSS, and other regulations. It provides end-to-end encryption (EE2E) functionalities enabled by default to counter the risk of theft or loss of sensitive and confidential data, through AWS-supported encryption on its own servers. “We get data in a tokenised way, which doesn’t affect security. It gets encrypted, much like an NFT that cannot be backtracked,” says Maini.
Hard at work familiarising the market with Konspot, attending industry events and making connections, Maini is firm in his intentions of educating stakeholders on the importance of data security and of using the right tools. When he launched Konspot in 2020, he wasn’t aiming to just come up with yet another tool to meet the new and urgent needs for online video conferencing, surfing the remote work wave. He meant to empower businesses large and small across the Middle East, inspired by his late father who himself was an entrepreneur. He says, “When my father left this earth, he left a lot behind, and I want [to do] the same.”
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