It’s been fascinating to watch the development of Eventtus, a startup I came across many years ago on my travels in the Middle East, finding them at the Rise-Up Summit in Cairo in 2012. Then, it was two young women who’d taken the Silicon Valley startup culture to heart and created their own take on event ticketing. But today it’s my genuine pleasure to write that Eventtus has reached a well-deserved exit.
Bevy, an enterprise event platform for virtual, hybrid, and in-person events has acquired Eventtus for an undisclosed sum. Bevy has raised $61.4M in VC.
The acquisition means Eventtus’ 20 engineers will now join the Bevy team, alongside Egyptian founders Mai Medhat and Nihal Fares.
The purchase will add to Bevy’s event technology stack with the addition of a mobile in-person conference app, and several other engagement tools for attendees, enabling Bevy to offer a more comprehensive, end-to-end event management solution, especially as events now stretch from virtual to hybrid to, – as the world opens up again – in-person event programs.
Derek Andersen, CEO, and co-founder of Bevy said: “Enterprises have invested in creating connected communities for their customers, employees, and partners. Events are not only an extension of these communities but also provide an important channel for driving ongoing engagement. With this acquisition, we can now further advance our leadership role in enterprise events.”
Medhat and Fares did an incredible job of navigating the crazy startup world, but they did it from Egypt, and during interesting political times in that country, to put it extremely mildly. And a global pandemic to boot.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Medhat said: “We competed against companies such as Hopin, Attendify, Bizzabo, and Swapcard within the mobile event application space, but we won when it came to delivering a white-labeled experience built for organizers.”
She told me Eventtus was acquired due to its tech stack and its expertise within event technology: “Derek Andersen and I met a few years back and we were the event application of record for Startup Grind and CMX Summit. Bevy is focused on enabling businesses to build community, and the acquisition allows for us to meet attendees where they are at and how they prefer to experience events.”
Medhat now becomes VP of Innovation while Fares will be Director of Product Management.
I asked Medhat if the exit was prompted by the pandemic in some way?: “It wasn’t. Across the world, we’re seeing so much exciting innovation and demand within the event tech space, with Bevy recently fundraising $40M during its Series C round. This acquisition is the union of our shared vision of being the community event engine powering community globally and we are excited to grow together.”
As for its ramifications for the Egyptian ecosystem, the news is nothing but good. Eventtus was one of the rising stars of the MENA region’s tech scene, and no doubt its founders will continue to champion that, going forward.
