Screenhero

Screenhero emerged in 2013 as a remote collaboration tool developed by founders Jahanzeb Sherwani, Vishal Kapur, Faraz Khan, and Jason DiCioccio. The founding team leveraged their prior experience from building iTeleport, a remote desktop application for iOS and Mac, to address a gap in the market. They recognized that existing screen sharing solutions were designed for one-way presentations, not for interactive, real-time collaboration.

A graduate of the Y Combinator accelerator's Winter 2013 batch, the company provided a platform for Mac and Windows that allowed multiple users to interact with a shared screen simultaneously. Its distinguishing feature was providing each participant with their own independent mouse cursor, enabling true collaborative work within any application, akin to a Google Docs experience for the entire desktop. The service was particularly popular among software developers for remote pair programming, a key use case the founders aimed to perfect. The technology was engineered for extremely low latency, a critical factor for its highly responsive and seamless user experience.

The company's traction and specialized technology attracted significant attention. After participating in Y Combinator, Screenhero secured $2.6 million in a seed round from investors including True Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. The business model proved effective; after initiating a paid service, Screenhero reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue within five months. This success culminated in its acquisition by Slack on January 28, 2015, for an undisclosed amount in cash and stock. The entire six-person Screenhero team joined Slack with the goal of integrating their real-time communication features—including voice, video, and its signature collaborative screen sharing—directly into the Slack platform. Following the acquisition, new sign-ups for the standalone Screenhero product were closed as the team focused on building the functionality into Slack. Keywords: Screenhero, collaborative screen sharing, remote pair programming, Y Combinator, Jahanzeb Sherwani, Slack acquisition, multiple mouse cursors, real-time collaboration, remote development tools, iTeleport, Vishal Kapur, Faraz Khan, Jason DiCioccio, low-latency screen share, interactive screen control, developer collaboration, True Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Slack Calls, remote work software