It’s interesting times in the event tech industry. Especially watching some of the bigger US event tech companies and seeing what is going on there. DoubleDutch Rationalisation
The DoubleDutch news of laying off 25 % of their 200 strong workforce wasn’t a huge surprise. They had raised over 70 million dollars with several rounds of investment and were focusing just on event apps.
From what I know about the event app market there is no way that the industry is worth anything close to $70 million. So there are going to be some out of pocket investors, unless DoubleDutch could sell their business to Salesforce type company.
The staff rationalisation would no doubt have had a negative effect on their staff moral but hopefully they can trade on through. DoubleDutch have undoubtedly built a good product, let’s hope that they can stay afloat and keep it out there.
Good luck to DoubleDutch in the future. They are great innovators and I really hope they can continue to be major players in the event app industry.
Cvent Acquisition
The Cvent acquisition by Vista Partners for 1.65 billion US dollars is no doubt the biggest event technology deal ever done.
Cvent have been around a long time and are a very solid business with a good suite of platforms. Vista recently also bought Lanyon, another huge company. In the event app space over the last few years, Cvent acquired CrowdCompass and Lanyon acquired GenieConnect, both are solid event app platforms.
It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens with the merging of two giant registration companies. No doubt there will be some rationalisations in terms of staff and products as they work through it all and can see what is doubling up.
Well done to the Cvent and Lanyon teams for building up such great companies. Inspirational stuff!
Pete Hair – CrowdComms, Co-Founder
In 2011, Pete co-founded CrowdComms from his garage in Sydney. With over two decades experience in event tech in the UK and Australia, Pete’s been involved with thousands of events, large and small. He gets a buzz improving events using the latest technology, and exciting customers with innovative solutions and great technical support.
