LOUIS, Mo. — Just one month after receiving growth funding from private equity firm Cove Hill Partners, Ungerboeck, a leading provider of event venue and exhibition management software, announced its merger with EventBooking, another leader in reservation and venue management software. Ungerboeck’s Manish Chandak will continue to lead the combined company’s team as President and CEO, and EventBooking’s Steve Mackenzie will serve as Executive Vice President.
“Cove Hill Partners supports our vision to create the world’s first unified, intelligent event platform,” said Chandak. “We have a new partner who believes in the innovation and rapid growth that Ungerboeck is able to deliver.”
“The industry today is technologically fragmented, making data exchange, integration and collaboration difficult,” he said. “There is an urgent need to improve data insights, integration and intelligence across industry partners, who tend to get bogged down in manual processes and spreadsheets. Our focus on venues, exhibition organisers and service providers gives us a unique advantage in creating experiences for organisers and exhibitors that span the entire event lifecycle.”
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“Once we secured the funding to support our vision, the next step was to achieve scale. The merger with EventBooking immediately brings nearly 1,000 locations to the company to enable it to achieve that scale,” Chandak said.
The goal of the new company, which will continue to exist under the Ungerboeck name, is to continue to drive innovation to enable customers to succeed through a unified set of values and a common roadmap. The combined company will continue to use the EventBooking and VenueOps brands for the company’s products.
Alongside the growth in venue management, the company has also recently seen significant growth in the exhibition space with its venue planning and exhibitor portal products as well as the launch a few years ago of its Exhibitor Service Centre, designed to enable venues and service providers to seamlessly sell to exhibitors.
“This is just the first of several concrete steps we will take over the next few years to grow and move into the future,” Chandak said. “Stay tuned for Ungerboeck’s future growth across exhibitions, organizers and service providers as the company continues to look for ways to blur boundaries, streamline processes and improve efficiencies across the many different players.”
He continued, “The growth equity financing partnership with Cove Hill Partners is really about driving innovation and improving R&D efficiencies through scale and functionality. With our knowledge of many customers around the world, we will be able to bring value to our customers through data exchange and insights that we would not be able to bring otherwise. The financing will allow us to grow organically and make strategic acquisitions to address the entire event lifecycle. We are building a platform that will provide commercial flexibility, without any integration issues, as venues and event organizers evolve their business models.”
Other industry players have also welcomed the merger. Brad Mayne, CEO of the International Association of Venue Managers (IAVM), said: “IAVM is thrilled with the news of this merger. Not only are Ungerboeck and EventBooking long-standing members of IAVM, they have also contributed immensely to areas such as our education and diversity initiatives that improve the lives of industry professionals. I look forward to the levels of innovation and service this merger will bring to our members.”
Contact Manish Chandak at (636) 300-5606 or Manish.Chandak@ungerboeck.com ; and Brad Mayne at (972) 538-1021 or Brad.Mayne@iavm.org