The year closed with a bang, with Cvent and Bending Spoons spending a reported combined $1.2 billion. Cvent announced nine-figure deals for two webinar platforms in the final days of the year, acquiring Goldcast (for a reported $300 million) and ON24 for $400 million. At the start of December, Bending Spoons agreed to pay $500 million for veteran registration and marketplace platform Eventbrite.
With ON24 and Eventbrite among the few public event tech companies and Cvent itself leaving the public markets after Blackstone acquired it in March 2023, there are no longer any public event tech companies.
Looking further back, most of the year was about incremental artificial intelligence (AI) innovation. Some new concepts and products did emerge, mainly introduced by startups, but most remain fringe concepts with only moderate commercial success. The bulk of product-focused announcements came from established event tech vendors announcing AI integrations.
The Big Deals
While 2025 also featured three of the largest event tech deals ever, the deals were not driven by exciting new technologies. Instead they were more about consolidation at bargain prices with the acquiring companies keen to boost top-line revenue and access to new enterprise clients.
The largest deal of the year was only tangentially related to business events, as Eventbrite’s user base is mostly focused on consumer ticket sales. Still, Bending Spoons’ acquisition of Eventbrite, a company founded in 2006 with a long history in events was major news, even if the $500 million all-cash price was only a fraction of Eventbrite’s $3 billion valuation at its IPO.
While it may have missed out on the largest deal of the year, event tech giant Cvent was by far the biggest investor this year. The company made three acquisitions, two in the second half of December alone, adding to four deals the previous year. In addition to $700 million it spent on the Goldcast and ON24 deals, it acquired Prismm (formerly Allseated) in April, a company specializing in 3D spatial design for event spaces. The move was Cvent’s second in venue visualization — a key investment area for its Cvent Supplier Network — after its 2018 acquisition of Social Tables.
Smaller But Noteworthy Market Movements
While Cvent and Bending Spoons dominated the year’s mergers and acquisitions, other event tech companies also made shrewd deals. Brandlive snapped up two virtual event platforms that had wild rides during the Covid pandemic. In January, it acquired 6Connex for an undisclosed sum, and in September, it acquired Hubilo, an India-based company that had previously raised around $150 million, and acquired badging company fielddrive, although the latter was not included in the Brandlive acquisition.
Other noteworthy deals included Bizly acquiring group dining booking platform Kapow from Hello! Destination Management, and Events.com acquiring virtual events platform Remo.
AI Innovations Breaking Through
Naturally, AI was the talk of the industry throughout the year, although not as prominent on event tech websites and marketing material as in consumer marketing.
Startups and smaller companies led the way for new ways to use AI in event tech. Here are some of the most innovative event tech products released in 2025.
- BabelTalkie, a pocket interpreter in 15 Languages
- Destinaitor, a destination and venue research platform
- Eric AI, a virtual business advisor for event professionals
- Erleah, a personalization and recommendation engine
- Envelope, an event planning agent
- Event Strategy Bot, a GPT offering a strategic review of events
- Highbar, a chatbot alternative to event apps
- Interprefy Agent, a real-time multilingual audio translation tool for online meetings
- Scurati, a keynote speaker recommendation service
- SlidesLive, a live streaming production product using AI-driven robotic cameras
- SpeakerStacks, a simple lead capture platform for speakers
- WITR, a networking tool to connect attendees through LinkedIn profiles
Incumbents Focus on Platform-Wide AI Adoption
Several of the larger event tech companies offering “all-in-one” platforms made announcements around platform-wide AI updates and integrations.
Cvent’s launch of CventIQ that embeds AI throughout its event and hotel sourcing ecosystem. Beyond time-saving features, the update included a clever “Session Snapshots” feature that allows attendees to save noteworthy content from sessions by tapping their app screen, marking out what sections AI summarization should include and sending valuable engagement signals to organizers.
RainFocus announced a strategy for “accelerated AI investment,” Bizzabo launched a new AI-powered networking suite and recommendation engine, Swapcard launched AI-Recommended Leads that uses real-time engagement for lead scoring. InEvent released a suite of AI tools for building event websites, forms, enabling facial‐recognition check‐ins, and a personalized event agenda creation tool.
Some companies framed their AI advances around agents with specific functions within the platform. Among these was event booking platform Planned, which launched a series of AI agents focused on destination recommendations, supplier outreach, RFP processing, proposal comparisons, and contract summaries. Meeting and travel management platform Groupize went further, rebranding as Groupize.ai and launching a marketing campaign featuring its agents as green robots, each performing specific tasks.
Going Back to Basics
AI was undoubtedly top of mind, but there was also a tangible drive to offer simplified solutions, particularly for smaller recurring events that don’t need many features. There was also a drive to do the basics well. Cvent launched Cvent Essentials, a simplified, low-cost version of its event management platform that offers pre-approved templates and integrates with the full version. RainFocus followed suit, launching Base Module with a similar scope, and ExpoPlatform launched NetWorks, a standalone AI-driven speed networking tool. Meanwhile, Stova focused on upgrading its core modules, introducing a new mobile app, and a new event intelligence suite. Last but not least, TK Events launched Virtual Creator Studio, a DIY virtual event solution featuring immersive venues reminiscent of platforms that peaked in popularity during the pandemic.
