This week in MarTech: Hopin, the virtual events platform raises $125 million, Zendesk and WhatsApp partner as one of WhatApp’s first core solution providers, Spotify acquires podcast technology platform, Megaphone, Livestorm raises $30 million for its browser-based meeting and webinar platform, and Demandbase unveils ABM solution, Demandbase One.
Hopin Raises $125 Million
Hopin, the virtual events platform has raised $125 million in a series B round funding. This latest injection of cash now raises the valuation of the 17-month-old company to $2.1 billion.
The online platform provides tools to help event organisers replace aspects of in-person events including support for livestreams for conference keynotes across multiple virtual stages, group meetings and networking opportunities.
Hopin has had an incredible year. Launched in 2019, the company has seen growth from 8 – 200 employees and 5,000 registered users to 3.5 million.
Although certainly accelerated by the pandemic, the company wasn’t founded as an interim solution and plans to continue it’s growth long after.
“Events will never go back to the way they were — hybrid is the future, and our investment in innovation and in our products will be toward moving the world to hybrid events,” - Hopin Founder & CEO, Johnny Boufarhat.
Zendesk and WhatsApp Partner
Zendesk and WhatsApp partner as one of WhatsApp’s first core solution partners.
The partnership will provide Zendesk with enhanced customer conversations to its service-first CRM solutions as businesses will be able to add out-of-the-box Zendesk messaging capabilities to their website and mobile apps. Customers will be able to engage in live and automated conversations over WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram.
“Businesses today need to meet their customers where they want to be met — and that’s increasingly through messaging. More than 175 million people already message a business account on WhatsApp every day to ask questions and get helpful information…” - Matt Idema, Chief Operating Officer, WhatsApp.
Spotify Acquires Megaphone
The popular audio streaming subscription service, Spotify has announced that it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Megaphone, a podcast advertising and publishing platform.
Spotify continues to focus its efforts on growing audio monetisation across the industry as the acquisition follows the launch of Spotify’s Streaming Ad Insertion. The podcast ad technology delivers the quality of traditional podcast ads with the precision and transparency of modern day digital marketing.
Together, Spotify and Megaphone aim to enhance the potential for podcasts as an effective digital marketing channel. They aim to achieve this through scaling audience reach through Megaphone’s Targeted Marketplace and by making Streaming Ad Insertion available to third-party podcast publishers for the first time.
“We are still in the early chapters of the streaming audio industry story, but it is absolutely clear that the potential is significant,” said Dawn Ostroff, Chief Content & Advertising Business Officer at Spotify.
Livestorm Raises $30 Million
Livestorm raises $30 million for its browser-based meeting and webinar platform.
Livestorm, the platform for video communication that runs completely in a browser from any device is adaptable for any need, from one to one meetings to large virtual events with more than 1000 attendees.
The software includes end to end features for planning, executing and measuring ROI for video meetings and events.
Livestorm have said they will use the latest funding to develop new features and functionalities to support larger companies and plan to create an ecosystem of integrations entirely dedicated to video communication as well as strengthening their presence globally and accelerate hiring.
“We believe that the next wave of video communication platforms will focus on more than just video distribution. Livestorm creates premium online event experiences.” - Livestorm CEO & Co-founder, Gilles Bertaux.
Demandbase Unveils ABM Solution, Demandbase One
Demandbase, a targeting and personalisation platform for B2B businesses have launched Demandbase One, an ABM solution that is designed to redefine how B2B companies execute their account based strategies.
Demandbase One brings together the best of Demandbase and Engagio, helping B2B revenue teams find and prioritise target accounts and engage them across channels.
By combining proprietary data, third-party data, and a company’s own first-party data, Demandbase One gives revenue teams a complete view of their customers and prospects at every stage of the buying journey. And with sophisticated AI and machine learning, Demandbase One can clearly direct teams to the accounts that will most likely convert to pipeline and ultimately, become valuable customers.
“…While we are a new Demandbase, we didn’t have to build new capabilities to deliver the leading ABM platform, we just had to combine the existing best-in-class functionality from each company — which is exactly what we’ve done.” - Jon Miller, Chief Product Officer at Demandbase.
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