Virtual events startup Hopin valued at $ 7.75 billion

LONDON – When Johnny Boufarhat founded his virtual events business two years ago, there was no pandemic, no lockdown and no travel restrictions. Everything changed in 2020.

The coronavirus outbreak has forced a host of major events and conferences to be canceled or postponed as governments around the world have imposed restrictions on public life to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The result was a boom in video conferencing software to the benefit of Zoom, Microsoft and Google.

But it’s not just America’s tech giants that have experienced tremendous growth. Hopin, Boufarhat’s company, and a handful of other start-ups, including Run The World and Bizzabo, have encountered increased demand as event hosts scrambled to move their gatherings online.

This wave of demand quickly catapulted Hopin to “unicorn” status, its valuation surpassing $ 2 billion in a funding round in November. Hopin’s market value then more than doubled to $ 5.65 billion in March.

Today the company has made another mega investment, its fourth since February of last year.

Hopin said Thursday it raised $ 450 million in a funding round co-led by Arena Holdings and Altimeter Capital. The latest cash injection values ​​the start-up at $ 7.75 billion, making it one of Europe’s most valuable tech unicorns.

Boufarhat, 27, said the success of his business came down largely to luck.

“I feel lucky,” he told CNBC on Thursday in an interview. “You work very hard and you make crucial decisions to get your business to where it is. But there is also a very large part of luck that gets you there.”

The Australian-born entrepreneur founded Hopin in London in June 2019 after falling ill with an autoimmune disease that prevented him from leaving home.

His company’s platform allows organizations to host online events with up to 100,000 attendees, with tools for virtual discussions and one-on-one networking. It has proven itself during the pandemic and now has more than 100,000 customers, including American Express and NATO, while more than 17 million users have signed up for an account.

The company’s growing valuation has made Boufarhat Britain’s youngest self-made billionaire on paper, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

To put Hopin’s growth into perspective, the company had only eight employees in March 2020. Its workforce now stands at 800. All Hopin employees work remotely.

“A lot of the things that had to snap for this to happen were beyond my control,” Boufarhat said of the company’s success. “It’s actually sad, we wish Covid never happened. We were still growing before Covid but obviously Covid was a massive accelerator for the business.”

Hopin has bought out a number of other start-ups, including live streaming Streamyard and video collaboration app Jamm in an effort to expand its product line. In three to four months, Hopin plans to launch two new services focused on collaboration and digital video marketing, Boufarhat said.

The company says it now has annual recurring revenue, or ARR, of around $ 100 million, up from $ 70 million in March and $ 20 million in November. ARR is a metric used by subscription software companies to calculate how much money they are likely to make in a year.

Hopin was previously profitable but is now operating at a loss and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future to prioritize growth, Boufarhat said.

Some investors are wondering if Hopin and other tech companies that have benefited from the pandemic can continue their winning streak in a post-Covid world.

“As we mature as a business, I think we’re going to go through a period of not slow growth but not hyper-rapid growth, and then it will come back as we start to launch new products,” Boufarhat said.

But the founder of Hopin says the company is preparing for a future with “hybrid” events taking place both online and offline.

“We organized an on-site hybrid event attended by 40 people in person and over 10,000 participants from around the world,” Boufarhat said.

However, he cautioned, “From my conversations with most of these organizations, I think next year is the year we’re going to see these on-site events come back.”

Regarding an initial public offering, Boufarhat believes that Hopin will go public within the next 2-4 years.