French company Eventmaker has announced a fundraising of €1.3 million from business angels, such as Olivier de Panafieu and Antoine Jeandet. The startup closed the funding before the crisis began, but now aims to use the funds to respond to the pandemic and develop digital versions of professional events and in doing so, support event organisers who would have otherwise lost their efforts.
As we already know at EU-Startups, having postponed our Summit to 2021 and also run a survey on how major startup events have been affected by COVID-19, event planning is of the sectors that has been hit the hardest since the start of the crisis. Eventmaker, founded almost ten years ago, plans to offer its all-in-one solution to remedy this. Its platform allows B2B event organizers (corporate events, trade shows, congresses, from 100 to tens of thousands of participants) to manage their sponsors but also exhibitors, speakers, ticketing or even welcoming participants. Thanks to its digitisation tools, the startup is well-adapted to the crisis.
Tristan Verdier, founder of Eventmaker says: “Faced with the threat of not being able to organize their shows, organisers are trying to keep them in a 100% online or hybrid format. The crisis has changed everything. Event organizers are looking for functionalities dedicated to the transmission of video content on the model of webinars, in order to share the content of exhibiting companies in their community.”
But will events move to 100% online? Verdier doesn’t think so, but definitely sees a need right now. If companies are thinking of setting up their one online event, there are certain aspects to take into consideration: “It’s easier to attract an audience in short, online formats, even if it’s complicated to keep them captivated….Event attendees want to be able to learn something first, become smarter after attending the event. The online experience responds perfectly, as the Moocs show. They also want to find a community, think collectively and digital is also a way to do this”, says Verdier.
If you’re planning your own online event, you could start with our articles ‘10 steps to plan a successful online event’ and ‘Hosting your first online event? Here are 10 easy-to-use hosting platforms’.
via https://www.AiUpNow.com/ by contact@bcurdy.com, Khareem Sudlow
