PE pours another $ 125m into Hubilo
he global virtual events
T platform Hubilo has raised £ 92m ($ 125.35m ) in a new ( Series B ) funding round led by Alkeon Capital and including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Balderton Capital . The investment further demonstrates the growing attractiveness of the event technology sector and brings Hubilo ’ s total funding to £ 113m in less than 18 months .
The investment , one of the largest in the event technology category , signals the revolution in ways by which people connect , engage and share experiences .
Hubilo ’ s CEO Vaibhav Jain tells EW he expects to increase the company ’ s overall staff total by 150 %.
“ The power to engage with massive audiences unlocks the potential for more diverse , geographically dispersed communities to come together for business and consumer events , remote workforces to stay engaged , and organisations to rethink the way they hire and train ,” he says .
Abhi Arun , managing partner at Alkeon Capital , adds : “ It is clear that the way we collaborate and connect will need to be rearchitected in order for any global player to succeed .”
Grip partners up with CLIPr
CLIPr , a Video Analysis and Management ( VAM ) platform that uses AI and Machine Learning ( ML ) to index video content and make it searchable , has announced a partnership with Grip , an event success platform . Grip will leverage CLIPr to index live session content in real-time , allowing its organiser customers to offer their attendees and exhibitors CLIPr-enriched video content , including ability to search by topic , subtopic or transcription .
Tim Groot , co-founder and CEO of Grip , said : “ Our customers are increasingly blending inperson and virtual events , and it ’ s important we partner with innovative technologies like CLIPr that maximise the value of session content 365 , and deliver the most engaging event experience .”
CLIPr ’ s VAM platform helps users extract important moments of recorded session content so they can search , and share content . Recorded videos are processed by CLIPr ’ s ML algorithms , which analyse audio and visual cues , along with natural language processing and emotion detection , to index key topics and moments in each video .
Left : Hubilo ’ s view is increasingly sought after
UFI examines the organiser ’ s perspective of data ownership
UFI has released a paper , using cross-industry collaboration , to share the event organiser ’ s perspective on data ownership .
The White Paper on Data Ownership looks into the digitisation of the exhibition industry , accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic , and how this has given rise to new types of events and digital offerings and more ways to obtain personal data . Organisers are often doorkeepers for attendees , open access directories for exhibitors , and concierges to both . To meet the broad needs of customers , organisers have turned to third-party technology providers for solutions .
However , in some cases , the SOPs for suppliers , acting as data processors , may not have been implemented as quickly as the technologies themselves , which , if left unremedied , could lead to governance gaps . This has led to challenges of trust between organisers and suppliers , as well as organisers and their customers .
The new paper aims to share some of the critical areas that must be considered for organiser and supplier data relationships .
www . exhibitionworld . co . uk Issue 6 2021 33