Lightspeed leads seed funding in virtual events platform Hubilo

By Narinder Kapur

  • 27 Oct 2020
Credit: 123RF.com

Hubilo Technologies Inc., a virtual events platform, has raised $4.5 million (Rs 33 crore) in a seed funding round.

The round in the Ahmedabad and Delaware-based platform, which operates in India as Hubilo Softech Pvt Ltd, has been led by Lightspeed Partners, the company said in a statement.

Other participants include Freshworks founder Girish Mathrubootham, former LinkedIn India chief executive officer Nishant Rao, Slideshare co-founder Jonathan Boutelle, and Helpshift CEO Abinash Tripathy.

Hubilo was set up earlier this year by Vaibhav Jain. The company says it has grown by over forty times following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, and that its platform will have hosted over a million attendees over the next few months.

Apart from offering event management software, Hubilo says it operates as a “system of record” for virtual events, with features such as gamified experiences for participant engagement and integration with Marketo and Salesforce to provide actionable insights to organisers and sponsors.

“The exponential traction and consistent repeat and expanded usage that Hubilo is seeing demonstrates strong customer loyalty,” Lightspeed partner Hemant Mohapatra said.

Jain added that the company is focussed on “reimagining and leading” the marketing processes that will emerge around virtual events.

Hubilo says customers have so far included entities and companies such as the United Nations, Roche, Informa Markets, Fortune, and GITEX. 

It also claims that it is seeing strong repeat usage from clients in markets such as the United States, Europe, West Asia, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific.

Among other startups in the virtual events space, Airmeet Inc raised capital in September. It raised $12 million (around Rs 88 crore) in a Series A funding round that was led by Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures. Accel India, Venture Highway and Global Founders Capital also participated in the round.