Investments

Launching CoVent—AI-powered events sponsorship marketplace

Investments

Launching CoVent—AI-powered events sponsorship marketplace

Words Founders Factory

October 14th 2024 / 3 min read

The problem

Events struggle to build hype and get funded, while investors and sponsors waste billions failing to identify and authentically align with the cultural phenomena that actually excite their audiences.

Event sponsorship is the bridge that connects these two challenges, and in a post-COVID live events boom has become a critical marketing channel for brands. The event sponsorship market is projected to double over the next six years, with a current TAM of $97.4B ($33.6B specifically for B2B event sponsorship).

But marketers looking to sponsor events face a number of significant challenges. For one, discovery: finding the right events to invest in is labour-intensive and often lacks a data-driven approach. Moreover, managing sponsorships and evaluating these opportunities, in order to understand the true value and impact of their sponsorship, is difficult.

The result of this is missed opportunities, poor event investments, and difficulty in demonstrating ROI to executive teams.

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The solution

CoVent connects marketers and community leaders through a SaaS-enabled marketplace, leveraging proprietary data-driven technology and an industry-trusted matching algorithm to optimise ROI and foster impactful partnership.

By leveraging CoVent’s AI-powered marketplace and comprehensive event intelligence, both marketers and event organisers gain unparalleled insights into event potential.

For marketers, the platform enables precise alignment of sponsorship opportunities with brand values and strategic goals. Marketers can optimise their event investments, ensuring better ROI and a streamlined approach to managing sponsorships. For event organisers, CoVent provides an outlet to showcase events to sponsors who would otherwise be difficult to reach. Organisers can attract partners who align with their event’s vision, ultimately enhancing sponsorship opportunities and visibility.

The platform contains three key components:

  • Event Discovery: The world’s most advanced event search and recommendation engine, providing marketers with AI-powered insights to identify the best events for sponsorship. Event organisers gain an outlet to connect with sponsors they might not have otherwise discovered.

  • Event Intelligence: Delivers in-depth insights on event buzz, audience demographics, current sponsors, influencers, and industry trends, helping marketers make informed decisions while showcasing events to potential partners.

  • Event Evaluation: Powerful tools for marketers to assess sponsorship opportunities and forecast potential ROI, giving event organizers the ability to showcase their value and attract new sponsors.

The team

Andrew Swisher (CEO & co-founder)

Andrew brings extensive experience in marketing and entrepreneurship, having successfully founded and scaled previous startups. He was previously a Marketing Director at Meltwater, before which he founded Bibliate, an AI summariser for research papers. 

Krishna Dubba (CTO & co-founder)

Krishna combines deep academic expertise and entrepreneurial experience in artificial intelligence. He holds a PhD in machine learning from the University of Leeds and has authored several peer-reviewed research papers and patents. He has also co-founded several AI startups, including Jeevi AI and A20 AI.  

Why we’re excited to invest

Levi Young, Founders Factory sector director, says: “Events sponsorship is critical for creating hype and funding great events, and is on a significant growth trajectory. Informed by their partnership with Pico, the global events and brand activation agency, CoVent is thoughtfully addressing some of the key challenges in event sponsorship, creating a comprehensive technology solution that is well-positioned to capture the market. We look forward to working closely with Andrew and Krishna as they spinout from our Venture Studio and progress into the Accelerator and beyond.”

What CoVent is looking to get out of the Accelerator 

  • Build out event and sponsor marketplace within the London tech community and beyond.

  • Create an industry leading AI-based platform for event organisers and sponsors driven by proprietary datasets.

  • Raise a seed round to double down on current growth and expand the marketplace into other locations and verticals.

Interested in co-founding a business with us?

Find out more about our Venture Studio and where we're looking to build businesses.

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