Live video messaging pioneer Glide (glide.me) has closed a $20 million Series B financing round led by New York and Herzliya-based Marker LLC, with participation from Two Sigma Ventures, Menlo Ventures and other existing investors. Ohad Finkelstein, Partner at Marker, has joined Glide's Board of Directors. To date, Glide has raised $28.5 million in venture financing.

The new funding will be used to further develop the consumer Internet company's popular Android and iOS messaging apps, which have attracted more than 10 million users in the United States alone. Glide will also further invest in its proprietary streaming video technologies, with a focus on enabling live video messaging experiences for leading smartwatch platforms, such as Android Wear and the Apple Watch.

To support these efforts, Glide is currently expanding its operations by opening new offices in both Silicon Valley and New York. As part of its expansion, Glide CEO and Co-Founder Ari Roisman, has relocated to Palo Alto, where he is building a team to further the company's strategic and business development efforts.

'We are thrilled to have the teams at Marker and Two Sigma join the Glide family,' said Roisman. 'Marker is known in the Israeli and U.S. start-up ecosystems as being a first-class partner for innovative, technology-driven companies that have potential for rapid growth. By combining Marker's expertise in scaling video and media companies with Two Sigma's technical prowess, we are well-positioned to take the powerful technology we've built and deliver on the promise of 'on demand' video messaging everywhere - even on your wrist.'

'When first introduced to Glide, I was immediately impressed by the company's unique video technology that enables extremely low latency video messaging,' said Finkelstein. 'We are very excited about Glide's user growth and technical achievements thus far. We are even more excited by Glide's potential to usher in a new era of asynchronous communications that is more expressive and satisfying than text messaging or email. We believe Glide's unique approach to messaging has disruptive potential to change the way people all over the world communicate throughout their daily lives. Glide's executives have been a delight to work with and we look forward to helping them grow over the long-term.'

Since its launch in May 2013, Glide has seen tremendous growth:

Glide has 10+ million users on Android and iOS in the United States
The average daily message sender sends 15+ messages daily
Glide users engage in billions of seconds of video activity every month
About Glide

Founded in May 2012, Glide is the brainchild of Ari Roisman, Jonathan Caras and Adam Korbl - three young entrepreneurs who live thousands of miles away from many of their friends and family. Frustrated by the difficulties keeping in touch across time zones, the trio created a new way to communicate instantly using video. Glide is available for free on iOS and Android.