Dubai, UAE, 26 October 2021: Hubilo, an industry-leading provider of virtual and hybrid events technologies, today announced it has raised US$125 million in Series B funding from a consortium led by Alkeon Capital.
The announcement comes just months after Hubilo established a strong client base in Dubai in response to growing demand from UAE organisations for its innovative virtual and hybrid events platform. Since its launch, the company has seen its regional customer base more than double. Hubilo is currently working to further its investment in the UAE by establishing a dedicated sales and support team in the country, delivering content and support in Arabic, and partnering with UAE-based event management and AV production companies; to further tap into enterprises and events organised by the Government.
Hubilo, which is fast becoming a disrupter in the hybrid events and engagement segment, was additionally supported in its Series B round by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Balderton Capital, bringing the company’s funding total to US$153 million in just 18 months. The investment by Alkeon, Lightspeed, and Balderton is one of the largest in the event-technology category and is a strong indicator of the shifting landscape in a subsector that empowers people to connect, engage, share experiences, and create opportunities.
The Series B funding is expected to fuel continued growth for Hubilo, both in its domestic market, India, and across the globe. The company is now looking forward to developing new business functions and further advancing the capabilities of its platform. It will strengthen its product, engineering, and design units in India, while go-to-market teams in the US, UK, EMEA, and APAC explore new opportunities. Hubilo also plans to set up more sales offices in key regions to expand its operations further and reach more customers. In addition, it will expand its workforce by 150% to respond to the increased customer demand for virtual and hybrid events.
“The pandemic brought a series of shocks to organisations around the world, starting with lockdown restrictions and moving swiftly to ongoing industry impact in which organisations had to rethink the way they hire and train”, said Vaibhav Jain, CEO and founder at Hubilo. “The potential ahead of us with this Series B investment is massive, but if we’ve learned anything over the past six years, it is that an intuitive platform is just the beginning. Our key differentiator is our commitment to event organisers to provide a dedicated onsite team to ensure flawless execution of every show and summit. This, more than anything, is what makes Hubilo the platform of choice for those that want their events to be free of technical hitches and hassles”.
Since its 2015 founding, Hubilo has focused on building a technology platform that increased attendee engagement at in-person events. In 2020, when COVID-19 caused widespread disruption to almost every industry, Hubilo redesigned its technology for the new normal. In just 26 days, it emerged as a leading architect of large-scale communications. The company has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Blackboard, Walmart, the United Nations, Roche Pharma, and Maersk Shipping. In the UAE, its customers include Yamaha Music Gulf, Exibex FZ LLE, National WIC Association, Trimble Solutions Middle East, and the Arab Thought Foundation.
“We believe strongly that the global distributed workforce will become a megatrend that will impact all of us”, said Abhi Arun, Managing Partner at Alkeon Capital. “It is clear that the way we collaborate and connect will need to be rearchitected in order for any global player to succeed. 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”.
While Hubilo started as an events technology platform, its solutions go beyond special occasions. It has successfully supported 10,000 events with more than 2 million attendees in more than 100 countries.
“Businesses directly spend more than US$1 trillion on events”, said Guru Chahal, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “In the past couple of years, 15 to 20% of the enterprise events budget has permanently moved to digital events. Hubilo is one of the fastest-growing and most innovative platforms serving this market. I expect, in the next few years, Hubilo will be broadly acknowledged as a market leader in the space”.
