Meeting optimization platform EventBoard raises $13.5M

Steven Loeb · August 17, 2016 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/46d2

EventBoard also unveiled Desk Booking, a new feature for workers to reserve desks in their office

EventBoard, is a company centered around the idea that meetings, in their current form, are completely inefficient, often wasting time, leading to lost revenue. That's an idea that's going to resonate with anyone who has ever been stuck in a room, sitting around a big table, listening to someone drone on about something that has literally nothing to do with them, while they could be getting work done instead. 

VCs, I'm sure, are no stranger to that feeling, and they just infused the company with its third round of funding.

The company announced on Wednesday that it has raised a $13.5 million round of funding led by NGP with participation from GE Ventures and existing investors Greycroft Partners, Origin Ventures and Zetta Venture Partners. 

EventBoard had previously raised a $1.5 million seed round in 2014, and a $6.5 million Series A in November of last year. This latest funding brings its total raised to $20.5 million.

The Salt Lake City-based EventBoard offers the EventBoard enterprise platform, which is a suite of cloud-based calendar software designed to more easily manage conference room scheduling, as well as improve meeting efficiency.

It gives companies tools that include conference room displays, mapping, visitor management, centralized management of all devices, work requests for meeting room IT issues and user permission settings. The idea is to streamline who gets to use a meeting space, and when, without having anyone getting into conflict over it. 

The platform also provides facilities with analytics, in order to make sure that those meetings are starting on time, and that companies are making the most efficient use of their time. Last year, EventBoard introduced a dashboard that providing the companies themselves with data about their specific meeting behavior, while also creating concrete recommendations for improvements.

The company says it now has 1,800 customers, up from 1,100 just last November, when it announced its Series A raise, including Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, GE, Viacom, National Instruments.

"Many of these customers are much larger than we’ve ever had. It turns out that larger companies have even more problems with meeting rooms and other shared resources," Shaun Ritchie, CEO and co-founder of EventBoard, told me.

EventBoard's goals go beyond just making meeting rooms more efficient, but the entire office, so it has also revealed the launch Desk Booking, which lets organizations designate temporary working areas or unowned desks, while letting employees more easily find open desks with the right resources and reserve them for a period of time.

"It’s imperative that we build product that directly aligns with our vision, but at the same time order that development to be in line with what our customers are demanding. The Desk Booking feature is a great example of how our customers help to drive us forward. They want to reserve additional workspaces at their office outside of meeting rooms -- whether they are desks, parking spots or other resources," said Ritchie

"Recognizing the on-demand nature of the modern workplace, it wasn’t hard to decide to build and release this product in a quick time frame. We’ve been beta testing it for a few months with several customers and have gotten great feedback on it. Now we’re happy to be able to extend that functionality to our customers."

In order to use the platform for desk reservations, users need desk-specific licenses, as their EventBoard room display licenses won’t work for desks. Organizations can added the feature to their account for an additional fee.

This funding round will be allocated towards building out three key areas of the business: product development, deepening our enterprise-grade security and sales & marketing.

"We are looking forward to expanding our offering and building out new features. One example is the new Desk Booking feature we announced today, which allows employees within an organization to easily find open desks with the right resources and reserve them for a period of time," Ritchie said.

"We’re also focused on scaling our own internal infrastructure so that we can continue to provide a great service, information and security to some of these bigger companies that we’ve recently signed. Including Fortune 500 companies like GE and Viacom."

Looking forward, Ritchie said he is focused on the enterprise and helping shape the future of work, especially among large companies that desperately need reshaping.

"I’ve had several conversations with senior teams at large companies who have said that this is a major focus of their company going forward. You’ll see us maintaining a heavy focus on evolving our enterprise tools, enterprise security and our robust analytics program. We’re also very proud of the way we are able to serve across industries and will continue to provide solutions for companies in all sectors," he told me.

"In the near future all offices will leverage collaboration technology in a widespread way. We’re already seeing this in terms of messaging platforms, document sharing and video conferencing. We will see this more and more in the physical office space as well, as they adopt solutions like ours. As our platform evolves, we will continue to peel back the layers of how offices work best, how we can make the workplace most efficient and how we can help employers create an environment where employees want to be. Companies of all sizes need to work smarter, not harder."

Support VatorNews by Donating

Read more from our "Trends and news" series

More episodes

Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs

EventBoard

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

EventBoard’s intuitive room scheduling software was designed to run on existing iOS devices, such as Apple’s iPad™ and iPad mini™, thereby functioning as an interactive display screen. By mounting these EventBoard-enabled devices in highly visible and easily accessible locations outside conference rooms, users are able to obtain real-time room reservation status at a glance, view future availability of the room, and schedule room reservations. An easy-to-use online dashboard allows for simple and secure remote management of all devices running EventBoard.

Beyond scheduling capabilities, EventBoard also includes a powerful analytics framework that quantifies workplace activities by illuminating data that has previously been unavailable. This type of data includes knowing when and with what frequency conference rooms are being utilized, tracking average occupancy rates, and identifying underused and overused resources and spaces. EventBoard Analytics helps customers identify positive and negative trends in their workplace that will allow them to make important operational, financial and technological improvements.