[Funding alert] Virtual event startup Hubilo raises $4.5M in seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners

Hubilo, the San Francisco-based global virtual events platform, on Monday said it has raised $4.5 million in a seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The round also saw participation from Jonathan Boutelle (Co-founder, Slideshare); Abhinash Tripathy (CEO, HelpShift); Nishant Rao (ex-CEO, LinkedIn India); and Girish Mathrubootham (Co-founder and CEO, Freshworks).

With this funding, the startup aims to build the world’s first Intelligent Hub for Virtual Events.

In a statement, Vaibhav Jain, Founder and CEO, Hubilo, said, “Our vision is to build the world’s smartest platform for virtual events that brings experience + intelligence together. While the revenue growth has been phenomenal, what excites us most is re-imagining and leading the marketing stack that will emerge around virtual events, and unlocking massive value for key stakeholders such as CMOs, event organisers, and sponsors."

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He added, "We do this through deep platform instrumentation and integrations that track attendee engagement, lead quality, and other event-related data. It is fantastic to have Lightspeed along in our journey as we ramp up a world-class team and business in the US and beyond.”

Started in April 2020 amidst the COVID-19 crisis, the startup has since grown close to 40x organically. It expects to exceed $10 million in bookings run-rate and host over one million attendees in the next few months.

Hubilo's clientele includes the United Nations, Fortune, GITEX, Roche, Informa Markets, and a few others.

The startup claims to see repeat usage from clients in the US, EMEA, and APAC markets. According to a statement, an average Hubilo client has returned to host four new and larger events within the last six months, some with over 80-100,000 attendees.

Speaking on the investment, Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed, said, “Hubilo is, hands down, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies we’ve ever seen. We had been looking for a founder to back in this market for a long time, and Vaibhav is a true Lightspeed founder: a strategic builder who has plans to change the sector, lead it globally, and an intense passion for and deep insights on this market from having previously run a hybrid events company.

"The exponential traction, consistent repeat, and expanded usage that Hubilo is seeing demonstrate strong customer loyalty, all of whom had superlative things to say about the platform. Hubilo will become as critical to events as Salesforce is for sales, and HubSpot for marketing,” he said.

Hubilo is building a “system of record” for virtual events. While it offers gamified experiences to increase attendee engagement, on the other end, it offers deep integrations with platforms, including Marketo and Salesforce, to provide actionable insights to organisers and their sponsors who can finally prove ROI from their event-related budgets.