Skift Take
RingCentral has acquired assets from Hopin, a company once valued at $7.75 billion. On the very same day, EventMobi acquired the virtual event platform Run The World. This news is just the beginning, as more industry acquisitions are in the works.
With an estimated net worth reported at $3.68 billion, RingCentral is acquiring select assets from Hopin, a company at one time valued at $7.75 billion. “There are not many event tech companies that could afford Hopin, but RingCentral is one,” said Pedro Góes, CEO of InEvent, an event management software company. “Hopin raised $1 billion during the pandemic. It would have to be worth a billion more to make this work.”
Industry insiders are saying this is just the beginning, predicting even more consolidation in the events industry. Online event software was one of the few verticals that benefited from the pandemic and received generous investment.
Hopin allows event organizers and marketers to create immersive virtual, hybrid, and in-person events, including a range of features that drive attendee engagement. It has products geared for virtual events as well as in-person with some of these features added when Boomset was brought into the mix.
Hopin’s most recent acquisition was of StreamYard and Streamable, rounding out its event offering with onsite technology and services. Interestingly, these two companies are not part of the acquisition. It involves only Hopin Events and Hopin Session platforms. StreamYard and Streamable represent 85 percent of Hopin’s revenue, so it makes sense to exit the event space and compete in the video space with Vimeo and Adobe.
Why Some Assets and Not All?
Questions are brewing from the omission of Streamyard from the Hopin acquisition in particular, said Rachel Moore, global director of branding and communications, Percepta. “Do RingCentral’s current video solutions technologically surpass Streamyard’s current state or future roadmap? Or is Streamyard not keeping pace revenue-wise enough for Ring to bring them along? Would this indicate a larger trend that video encoders are becoming obsolete as live social video becomes passe and tools like Hopin bake in the production features that only Streamyard and Restream could offer in the past?” she asks. “As someone who remembers when Streamyard first came onto the scene, I’m interested in their destiny and what this might mean for video encoder companies that are used fairly widely in business martech stacks.”
Hopin May Ditch Events for Good
This move gets AI-powered global enterprise cloud communications company RingCentral, video meetings, collaboration, and contact center solutions, into virtual events, a goal they have had for years. Hopin may ditch events for good, focusing on video instead.
“There are so many ephemeral changes in the event tech industry that are not necessarily a positive for the planner,” said Góes. “It can be challenging when the technology you are using and are familiar with changes.”
Tim Sarrantonio is a planner who has been disrupted by event tech acquisitions. As a result, he brought nearly everything in-house to produce virtual events. “So now I just am looking for the best fit for pricing and support and platform. I want to build a long-term partnership, but I’m not expecting that to happen given the state of the market,” said Sarrantonio.
EventMobi Acquires Run the World
In other news, Toronto-based event tech company EventMobi has acquired virtual event platform Run The World.
EventMobi has 14 years of experience supporting in-person events across the industry. It will now guide Run The World’s virtual event organizers and digital marketers as they incorporate in-person events into their sales funnels and audience growth strategies.
This move also underscores EventMobi’s commitment to virtual events to increase reach, tap into new revenue streams, engage audiences year-round, and build event communities.
Run The World zeroed in on virtual events at a time when in-person meetings were strictly limited. This led to a significant $15 million investment and a number of high-profile clients like Forbes, Meta, and Amazon. Its rapid growth offers knowledge and experience that EventMobi intends to leverage as it promotes a mixed-format event strategy.
“This is a great fit. We are seeing an interesting trend of our customers working on micro-experiences to promote ongoing engagement. They are creating virtual events to connect the audience,” said Bob Vaez, founder and CEO of EventMobi.
“We proudly hosted thousands of customers, fostering a sense of connection when the world needed it most. Now, as the world settles back to in-person events, we’re thrilled to join forces with EventMobi. We assure our community they are in the best hands and can expect even more powerful and seamless hybrid event solutions,” said Xiaoyin Qu, Founder and CEO of Run The World.
