Virtual events platform Hubilo raises $125 mn for global expansion

The investment signals a change in ways people engage and share experiences at a time when uncertainty about Covid-19 has seen cancelled events and delayed a return to traditional office environment

Hubilo, a leading global virtual events platform, said it has raised $125 million in a funding round led by Alkeon Capital and additionally, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Balderton Capital. The Series B funding will help the firm to further the development of the future of events and engagement on Hubilo’s platform.

This brings the company’s total funding to $153 million to date in 18 months. The investment, one of the largest in the event technology category, signals the big change in ways by which people connect, engage, share experiences, and create opportunities at a time when uncertainty about Covid-19 and its variants have resulted in cancelled events and delayed a return to traditional office environments.

“The power to engage with massive audiences unlocks the potential for more diverse, geographically dispersed communities to come together for business and consumer events, remote workforces to stay engaged, and organizations to rethink the way they hire and train. The potential ahead of us with this investment is massive,” said Vaibhav Jain, CEO and founder at Hubilo. “But what we’ve learned over the last 6 years is that an intuitive platform is just table stakes. Our commitment to event organizers is that we will always provide a dedicated event team to ensure flawless execution of every event. This is why so many event organizers make Hubilo their platform of choice.”

The Series B funding will further enhance Hubilo’s continued Indian and international growth. It would allow the company to develop new business functions, advance innovation of its platform, strengthen its product, engineering, and design teams in India, and go-to-market teams in the US, UK, EMEA, and APAC. Hubilo also plans to set up new sales offices in key regions to expand its operations and reach a greater volume of customers. In addition, Hubilo will also increase the overall employees’ count by 150 per cent to support its rapid growth plans and to respond to the increased customer demand for virtual and hybrid events.

Hubilo was founded in 2015 to build event tech that increased attendee engagement at in-person events. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Hubilo saw revenues dwindling to zero, but rather than declare bankruptcy, they reworked their technology in 26 days and emerged as one of the leading architects of large-scale communications with the first version of their event platform. Hubilo works with some of the globe's largest brands such as Blackboard, Walmart, United Nations, Roche Pharma, Maersk Shipping, with several others.

Although the Asia Pacific region accounts for 25 percent of Hubilo’s business, the company still plans to further grow in the APAC region, especially in India. The recent additions to Hubilo’s India clientele are Publicis Sapient (TLG India Pvt Ltd), Nivea, Reliance Jio, Schneider Electric, and George P Johnson.

“We believe strongly in the global distributed workforce being a megatrend that will impact all of us in the future. It is clear that the way we collaborate and connect will need to be rearchitected in order for any global player to succeed,” said Abhi Arun, Managing Partner at Alkeon Capital. “In Hubilo, we saw a powerful technology capable of connecting the offline and online worlds, a strong CEO, and an amazing market opportunity that gave us the confidence to invest.”

Now that the Delta variant has cemented the need to rethink every meeting and event strategy for the long term, companies realize that collaboration and communication technologies are essential for more than just events. While Hubilo started as an events technology platform, its solutions go beyond special occasions. It has successfully supported 10,000 events with more than two million attendees across more than 100 countries.

“Businesses spend over one trillion dollars of direct spending on events. In the last couple of years, 15-20 per cent of the enterprise events budget has permanently moved to digital events,” said Guru Chahal, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “Hubilo is one of the fastest-growing and innovative platforms serving this market. I expect in the next few years that Hubilo will be broadly acknowledged as a market leader in the space.”