Photo: Bizzabo
Bizzabo, a Savyon, Israel-based end-to-end Event Success Platform company, announced it has raised $27 million in Series D funding led by Viola Growth. New investor Next47 also joined this round along with existing investors Maor Investments and Pilot Growth. In conjunction with this round, Rafi Carmeli and Eran Westman of Viola Growth Partners and Matthew Cowan of Next47 are joining Bizzabo’s board.
Including this round, Bizzabo has raised $56 million in funding. And the funding will be used to propel the company’s plans to expand its platform capabilities, which helps enterprises and mid-market organizations build data-driven, personalized, and engaging professional event experiences. Plus the funding will be used for growing Bizzabo’s research and development and go-to-market teams across New York and Tel Aviv.
“85% of business leaders believe that in-person events are a critical component of their company’s success,” Bizzabo CEO and co-founder Eran Ben-Shushan. “More specifically, 25% of B2B companies’ marketing spend is on live events. As a result, the number of professional events each year has exploded and more organizations, specifically, B2B companies, are creating personalized event journeys. But, the complexity required for an organization to create, manage, market and measure the growing number of professional events, while also maximizing ROI, is a challenge. This is where we come in. Bizzabo unleashes the power of professional events for businesses, bringing people together for impactful in-person experiences.”
In the last year, Bizzabo has more than doubled its revenue and the company is working with companies like INBOUND, SaaStr, Forbes, Dow Jones, Gainsight, and Drift for various projects.
“We are excited to support Bizzabo’s vision as they continue to take the lead on event technology innovation. The future of this category is data-powered — that means using data to increase professional event attendance and amplify engagement across channels through personalization, while granularly tracking event ROI. No platform is better positioned to deliver on that future than Bizzabo,” explained Cowan.
Bizzabo’s data-powered technology enables enterprises and mid-market organizations to unlock the full value of professional events. And it makes it easier to create, manage, and execute upon every aspect of the event lifecycle. Plus this helps companies maximize ROI for event marketing strategies. Shushan added that the $500 billion event management space traditionally focuses on the operational and transactional elements of events. And these tools have not focused on capturing and using rich data to tell an amazing and actionable story per attendee and company — which is fundamentally changing.
“In-person professional events have become a strategic growth driver for modern corporations,” added Carmeli. “To maximize the marketing potential embedded in professional events, organizations are making Event Success technology a mandatory part of their overall tech stack. As that occurs, only a modern and holistic platform approach, built to deliver data-powered, personalized event experiences, will win. Bizzabo’s technology is disrupting this category with a great leadership team and we are honored to partner with them.”
With the increase in digital and offline noise, organizations are focusing on creating memorable and personalized experiences throughout the customer journey. And this journey culminates at the peak of in-person events whether it is at conferences, seminars, trade shows or other experiences. And so marketers will need to see the full picture of attending individuals and companies to ensure their unique journey is fulfilled while achieving event-driven KPIs.
“Bizzabo is the core of our tech stack for INBOUND, our 24,000+ attendee annual event. The platform delivers a seamless end-to-end attendee experience, improves attribution reporting for our marketing efforts, increases attendee delight, and streamlines the onsite process,” Hubspot’s VP of INBOUND Kim Darling commented.
Founded by Boaz Katz, Alon Alroy, and Ben-Shushan, Bizzabo has enabled thousands of events globally to run seamlessly with a growing number of enterprise and mid-market organizations. And the company currently has 120 employees across its locations in Israel and New York.
“We rely on Bizzabo to manage, scale and measure Gainsight’s flagship events around the world, including Pulse, our industry conference that attracts thousands of customer success and product leaders from around the world. Their Event Success Platform is end-to-end and comprehensive, ensuring that our events team can easily manage operations, marketing, engagement, and measurement, while also supporting our efforts to drive more personalized experiences for our attendees. By investing in an event technology platform that has a pedigree in innovation, we know that we will have access to game-changing solutions for years, especially as events grow more complex and central to revenue growth,” acknowledged Gainsight CMO Anthony Kennada.
