Vendelux Raises $50 Million for Live B2B Events

Vendelux secures $50 million to enhance in-person B2B marketing events, using AI to track effectiveness and support businesses in decision-making.

The demand for in-person gatherings is clearly robust, as evidenced by recent events such as the Cannes Lions festival. To capitalize on this surge, Vendelux, a live events information platform, has successfully raised $50 million.

Tribeca Venture Partners spearheaded Vendelux’s Series B funding round, with support from S3, Pelion Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, FirstMark, and Cervin Ventures. The company has now raised a total of $71 million, including a $14 million Series A round completed in 2023.

Vendelux leverages artificial intelligence and exclusive data from over 250,000 global events to assist B2B brands in selecting beneficial events and coordinating face-to-face meetings. This tool integrates with customer relationship management systems, providing insights into the effectiveness of events by showing how attendance impacts deal flow.

Currently, Vendelux boasts over 250 clients, including notable names like Ramp, ElevenLabs, Vercel, Glean, GitLab, DocuSign, and Intel.

Founded in 2021 by Alex Reynolds and Stefan Deeran, both ex-Shutterstock employees, Vendelux emerged from their firsthand experiences in arranging in-person meetings to finalize deals with companies such as OpenAI and Google. Reynolds, the CEO, highlighted, “We found that when we went to the right event and met the right people, the stars aligned. But if we went to the wrong event, or even if we went to a good event, but didn’t get face time with the right people, it was a huge waste of time and money.”

Looking ahead, Reynolds sees a significant opportunity in partnering with larger organizations that often send multiple representatives to events. He plans to enhance Vendelux’s marketing strategies and improve the tools available to measure return on investment (ROI). This year, the company intends to double its workforce, which currently stands at 85.

Reynolds asserts, “Anyone that wants to meet their customers and prospects in person can be a customer of ours, but the biggest area of opportunity is really with the enterprise. Every Fortune 500 company should be a customer.”

The interest in live B2B events has surged following the easing of pandemic restrictions. Private equity investment in the sector has been on the rise, and stocks of consumer live-event companies have performed well.

While global conflicts have affected some B2B events, overall enthusiasm for face-to-face interactions remains strong. According to a first-quarter survey by Forrester involving 654 marketing decision-makers, organizations typically allocate more than 25% of their marketing budgets to events. However, Reynolds noted an increasing scrutiny over these event budgets.

Vendelux faces competition from platforms like Jifflenow and Chili Piper, which offer similar meeting-booking functionalities. Nonetheless, Reynolds maintains that Vendelux offers unique insight that distinguishes it from its competitors. He stated, “As people are really trying to figure out where their marketing dollars should go, there’s more pressure to be able to show that ROI. We hear from marketing leaders that they really need to be able to show the output that’s coming from these events in order to continue to invest more in the channel.”