Rethinking
in-person and online events with a customisable solution featuring multiple
platforms and services. A technological hub through which companies organized
over 10,000 events with over 2.5 million guests and over 1.5 million
participants from 34 countries worldwide. An ingenious intuition born on
Emilian land. For FARE INSIEME Giampaolo Colletti interviews Franco Bondi,
founder and CEO of Eventboost
FARE INSIEME
STARTUP is the spin-off of the FARE INSIEME
dedicated to the presentation of businesses that form
part of the Primo Ventures portfolio, a company that manages funds specializing
in the digital sector and new space economy. Confindustria Emilia has started
up a
partnership with Primo Ventures with the objective of providing its associates
with new opportunities for growth thanks to the presentation of the most
innovative start-ups on the market. Here are their stories.
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
“The lowest
number possible”. To tell you the story of this new start-up, we need to start
from afar. Both in time and space. And from a statement that travelled the
whole world over only to be belied by events. Because events, together with an
exponential evolution of the networks, can often have unpredictable
consequences. “The lowest number possible,” as we mentioned earlier. It was
2013 - remember this year as we will come back to it soon - and with these
words, the then Head of Finance at Google Patrick Pichette answered the press
when asked how many of the employees working for the Mountain View giant were
working remotely. After all, gathering in a place stimulated productivity,
innovation, camaraderie and, of course, supervision. Ten years and one pandemic
later and the situation is completely overhauled, stressed the Economist in a
recent dossier revealing all the contradictions of returning to the office.
Company
profile. Consequences of the digitisation process and of a new way of
perceiving our connected and in-person existences. After all, the story we are
about to tell you includes precisely this: the strong push towards the web and
connection platforms, the changes under way in the relationship between the
private and public sector, the rethinking of
in-person, virtual and hybrid events. This is the story of Eventboost,
an event management platform for companies that was set up in 2014. It is a
‘Software as a service’ intended as a technological hub for events. A platform
that managed over 10,000 events in 34 different countries for its client
companies , to which over 2.5 million users were invited, 1.5 million of which
registered via the platform and over 1.2 million of which attended thanks to
the platform. The headquarters are located in Chiasso, Switzerland. But the
start up also has a branch in Cagliari and its partners are all Italian, mostly
from Emilia. Eventboost boasts 14 employees for a global market that looks
towards Europe, America, Canada, Asia and Australia with a turnover of €1.4
million and a year-on-year growth of +32%.
Human and
technological capital. This hi-tech gem born of Emilian talent that is scaling
the global markets can perform various activities: there are customisable
registration modules and web applications for events, but it is also possible
to create tickets with the relevant payments made through a blockchain
technology. But there is more. Eventboost enables e-mail marketing, real-time
check-ins, the printing of badges and data analysis. Today, Eventboost stands
out among the main competitors when it comes to the management of end-to-end
events with a platform that promotes the uniqueness of initiatives,
differentiates its offer, simplifies onboarding and enables the management of
every single event. It was Franco Boldi, a serial startupper, who came up with
the idea. Born in Romagna and currently based in Bologna, this serial
startupper with a degree in Economy and Trade created Quadrante in 1996, one of
the first Italian digital agencies of which he was the President and CEO until
March 2014. Over the last 14 years, he founded various companies in the digital
communication and mobile app sector, including Easytkts, Web Marketing Tools,
Jakala, Kangaroo and +Plugg. “In 2013, Quadrante often received requests for
apps that would make it possible to check-in at events, so we assessed the size
and scope of the market and the potential for growth and decided to get into
this business after leaving Quadrante. The recipe for success includes
excellent customer care, an Italian DNA when it comes to creativity and
innovation and flexibility to be able to manage all kinds of events,” reports
Franco Bondi, CEO of Eventboost, which was the protagonists of various
financing rounds as well. Primomiglio was the first to believe in it. “Every
year, we assign between €300,000 and €500,000 to R&D as, to us, innovation
is linked to constantly paying attention to the requests coming in from the
market and the clients as well as to our contacts with universities and
research centres,” stresses Bondi. Once again, a success story lies principally
with teamwork, from alliances with value chain to that healthy obsession for
never stopping. Because, what we call research today can one day become an
enterprise. You just need to believe in it.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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