Around the midst of November, 2020, the Series A round of funding which led by Kleiner Perkins had successfully made Welcome raises $12 million of investment. This funding for this online event platform was joined by several investors such as Webb Investor Network, Kapor Capital, and Y Combinator.
Series A Investment Raises for Welcome
Following the funding round conducted for Hopin that raised $125 million, plenty of startup companies in the similar vein are also gaining traction. For one, it was announced that Welcome raises $12 million in a series A of seed funding. The CEO and co-founder of this company, Roberto Ortiz, made statement that they currently positioned themselves as Ritz Carlton of the online and hybrid events industry.
The field itself provides a lot of opportunity, he made a note. The pandemic outbreak made the advancement which should take place in 2030, took place a decade earlier. This way, everyone were forced to joined the virtual environment.
This exact environment is what encourages the online conference platform founders to begin a startup company that connect food wholesalers and restaurants to online-based events. In the date of its official launch, the service had already bagged several clients such as Elevate 2020, Freely in Hope, and Brooks Winery.
The conference platform provider is currently targeting business clients with a range of five-figure worth of yearly-based contracts. The precise pricing was not disclosed by the company, but it is most likely to be pricier than the average offers of today’s virtual event companies.
Even though currently the company is going to the high-end side of the market, the CEO expressed about how they’ll feel easy to scale down their market to match with virtual meeting platforms. He made an example of how extremely high-end brand like Tesla can easily present offers more economical car.
The Origin of Welcome and Its Provided Services
Welcome is not actually intended to provide a service as it does nowadays. Before the pandemic hit the world, Roberto Ortiz and several of his business partners established a startup company called Gather Wholesale – which was found to provide effective link between farmers or wholesalers and restaurants. That being said, it was crushed when the Corona virus outbreak in March 2019 led to global social distancing that causes limitations for various industries.
Then, on the following several weeks, Ortiz along with Shen brothers created a new plan to establish high-end platform for virtual-based events. This was aimed to satisfy the empty space in the industry of in-person conferences and meetings due to the pandemic.
The virtual conference platform was created to host massive-scale virtual gatherings, which according to the company’s CEO will mimic an Apple product launch event. The company enables various event organizers to conduct pre-recorded, high-end on-screen and livestream videos on its virtual event app.
The company provides virtual events that are similar to broadcast studio on interactive TV. This encourages a breakout of distance, where the presenters are serving themselves with green room feature. It also allows the attendees to be invited on stage, whether it is during presentations or panel discussions.