The Online Event Organizers The startup has recently raised funding worth $4.5 million led by Lightspeed India Venture Partners and a clutch of angel investors

One thing that 2020 has taught us is that we have taken technology for granted. When people were forced to stay indoors due to the outbreak of the virus, a strong sense of gratitude was evoked among people towards technology.

Events, award shows, marriages and parties, gradually all shifted online with much higher participation rates. One startup that has been providing a state-of-the-art platform to companies/organizers to organise such large events virtually is Hubilo.

Founded in 2015 by Vaibhav Jain and Mayank Agarwal, Hubilo until 2020 was helping streamline physical events with the help of technology. But come 2020, Jain and his team, pulsing the trend, pivoted into a comprehensive virtual platform that meets all the event-based requirements through the integration of numerous technology tools.

Jain, who in his college days used to organize multiple events, said people are beginning to comprehend the value of doing virtual events and how critical insights and event analytics have become to make important business decisions.

"Virtual events can be conducted at a much larger scale; it requires comparatively less manpower and resources, it is cost-effective and with the right marketing strategy gives you 100x add on value as compared to a physical event," Jain added explaining the benefits of virtual events.

Further stressing on it, he said an event held in 2019 had 4,000 registrations. However, for the same event after hiring Hubilo, the number of attendees the company registered for the virtual event was 80,000.

Sharing the highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey, Jain said the initial two years were challenging as it required a lot of convincing and explaining for the requirement of technology in physical events. Post that the growth was organic. However in February 2020, their revenue went to zero teetering founders to even think of shutting the company down.

"I can say that I have learned and grown more in these last seven months of my journey than I have in the last seven years," he added.

According to Jain post the pivot, the company has grown massively and was able to achieve a two-year revenue target in six months. In this period, they have served more than 300 clients with some events having as many as 50,000 to 1 million attendees.

The San Francisco-based company has till date facilitated events across 80 countries for over 500 plus clients inclusive of names like United Nations, Roche, Informa Markets, Tech in Asia, Fortune, and several others.

The startup has recently raised funding worth $4.5 million led by Lightspeed India Venture Partners and a clutch of angel investors.

In future, the company is looking to set up its base offices and on-board talent in the APAC, Europe and Middle East regions to strengthen their presence further in these respective markets.

Despite the pivot, the company is looking at a hybrid model in future.