In March 2022, we published our Event Marketing Software Industry Whitepaper and titled it "Huge Market in Transition/Leadership up for Grabs." We've decided to title this year's update "Are there ANY Challengers to CVENT in this $7B Global Market?" On March 14th, it was announced that Blackstone is taking CVENT private at a $4.6B valuation. The price is$8.50/share, representing a 29% premium to the Company's closing price on January 30th. But, interestingly enough, it was only an 8% premium to the price last March when we wrote the initial report. The $4.6B deal values CVENT at7.3x TTM revenue and 6.3x 2023E revenue – not bad for the clear leader in a $7BGlobal Market! The only other company with a ranking close to CVENT by Forrester is RainFocus, and we estimate them to be less than $100mm in revenue albeit with fantastic "data collection, personalization centric" positioning.
These comments come at a time when Events finally seem to be "earning a seat at the MarTech stack table." 74% of respondents to a Forrester survey said that "Events are their best way to deepen relationships with their customers" and 74% also said "Events are their most important demand-generation activity." This is incredibly important as the B2B sales funnel has gotten highly complex with prospects and customers doing much more research online thereby offering fewer time/opportunities for traditional salespeople to find and build relationships with their prospects and customers.
In-person bonding with prospects and customers at an event is far more effective than buying keyword search terms or email marketing. Furthermore, the data a company can collect through the attendee registration and content consumption is far more insightful than what can be collected through search or email marketing. Finally, when weaved into various phases of the buying process, events can shorten the buyer journey and build a community around the company's brand. Bottom line, the Event Marketing Software industry is worth a careful look, especially to all the PE guys out there with $1.3T of excess capital to invest.
© In the U.S., America’s Growth Capital, LLC dba AGC Partners, member FINRA/SIPC. In Europe, America’s Growth Capital Europe, LLP (Appointed Representative Alternatives St. James, LLP which is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority). America’s Growth Capital Europe, LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership incorporated in England and Wales (OC368580). Its registered address is 6th Floor, 9 Appold Street, London EC2A 2AP. The testimonials contained herein may not be representative of the experience of other customers or clients. Testimonials are no guarantee of future performance or success. Deals marked with an “*” are non-AGC deals.
