Business Event Industry

Event Tech Giants Announce Major Merger

Cvent and Lanyon Merger Announcement
Written by Kaylynne Hatch
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In April, the event tech industry was taken somewhat by surprise when Cvent announced its acquisition by private-equity firm, Vista Equity Partners in a $1.65 billion deal. Due to the firm’s previous acquisition of event technology provider, Lanyon in 2012, rumors quickly spread about a potential future merger of the two companies.

Yesterday, those rumors were affirmed when Cvent announced an immediate merger with Lanyon Solutions Inc. The two companies will be held privately and operate under the Cvent brand, with Reggie Aggarwal (Cvent’s founder and CEO) named CEO of the new company. The headquarters of the company will be in Tysons Corner, Virginia but an office presence will remain in Dallas, Texas (Lanyon’s former headquarters).

Aggarwal said of the acquisition, “We celebrate two new milestones today as we formally join the Vista family and merge with our highly-regarded peer, Lanyon. […] Combined under the Cvent umbrella, and with Vista’s powerful backing, we will draw on our decades of experience to push the boundaries of event technology innovation and remain focused on delivering outstanding technology, capabilities and service to the events industry.”

Between the two, Cvent and Lanyon have 800+ technology professionals and 700+ customer-facing support staff. According to Skift, “the Cvent/Lanyon enterprise now owns between 80-90 percent of the online event management space, so there are a lot of duplications that will likely result in significant employee and product reshuffling in the coming months.” Despite a somewhat uncertain future for these product teams, overall, the merger ensures that Cvent will continue to be a global market leader in the event technology industry for the foreseeable future.

In a Q&A with Meetings & Conventions, Aggarwal said that Cvent has plans to ramp up global expansion with Vista’s $20 billion fund. These plans include the establishment of new offices in 2017 in Singapore and Sydney as well as the expansion of existing offices in London.

We’re eager to see what new technology innovations Cvent will develop in the coming years.

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Kaylynne Hatch

Editor / Social Media Manager at The Meeting Pool
Kaylynne Hatch is a social media expert and online marketing manager. With a Bachelor of Science in Communications and New Media from the University of Utah and a background in graphic design and entrepreneurship. She has been working in the events and travel industry since 2013.
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