Cvent to go public once again, with Zoom among the big investors

Cvent to go public once again, with Zoom among the big investors
By Travel Weekly


Cvent has announced a new business deal that will see the global meetings, events and hospitality tech provider return to being a publicly-traded company.

Dragoneer Growth Opportunities Corp II, a blank check company formed by an affiliate of Dragoneer Investment Group, has agreed to merge with Cvent, with the combined entity to operate as Cvent Holding Corp and trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ‘CVT’.

The transaction values Cvent at an initial enterprise value of US$5.3 billion ($6.8 billion), and will provide the company with US$801 million ($1.1 billion) in cash.

Cvent said this will enable the company to accelerate product innovation, increase research and development, reduce debt, and expand go-to-market activities.

Reggie Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Cvent, said: “The meetings and events industry has experienced rapid digital transformation over the last 18 months, with the pandemic creating a new paradigm for the events industry.

“Events became digitised through virtual and online experiences, and we invested heavily in expanding our virtual event capabilities. Now, we are engaging in a hybrid world, as in-person events resume, and virtual events remain prominent.

“With the increased digitisation of our industry, events are ’always on’ and have fewer boundaries.

“My management team and our nearly 4,000 employees around the world are excited for the opportunity to continue to innovate and enable our customers to leverage Cvent across their total event program.”

Dragoneer founder and managing partner Marc Stad said: “We are excited to lock arms with Cvent and help position the business for its next phase of growth as a publicly-listed company.

“With the optionality, flexibility and reach that Cvent can provide, we expect organisations to increasingly turn to Cvent to expand their audiences and create new, user-friendly ways for both virtual and in-person participants to interact with their events.

“Moreover, Cvent’s hospitality cloud business is a differentiator that benefits from powerful network effects – a key tenet that we look for in many of our investments at Dragoneer.

“Cvent is led by an exceptional management team with years of industry experience and a strong track record of profitable growth.

“We believe the US$801 million of capital expected to be raised from this transaction will enable management to double down on product development and further cement Cvent’s position as a leader in this software category.”

A group of investors, including Zoom, has committed to participate in the merger transaction through a common stock private investment in public equity of US$475 million ($646 million) at US$10.00 (13.61) per share.

Kelly Steckelberg, chief financial officer at Zoom, said the two companies share “a common mission to bring people together through technology”.

“We believe that Cvent’s event technology is complementary to what we offer as a video communications leader, and our organisations already have a long track record of working together as technology partners and as users of each other’s solutions,” she said.

“We are proud to be an investor in Cvent, as it accelerates its mission of delivering engaging experiences for virtual, in-person, and hybrid events. We look forward to deepening our partnership with Cvent in the future.”

The proposed merger of Cvent and Dragoneer is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2021, subject to approval by Dragoneer’s shareholders and several other conditions.

Cvent’s impending listing on the Nasdaq won’t be the first time the company has gone public, having closed a US$135 million ($184 million) initial public offering back in 2013 before being taken private again by Vista Equity Partners in 2016.

Featured image source: Facebook/Cvent

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