Notes from the Cvent S-1 IPO Filing

Cvent, one of the oldest and largest online event management software companies, just released their S-1 IPO filing. Cvent has an interesting background raising money as a dot com startup in the late 90s, growing without much capital for over a decade, and then raising a large round of $135.9 million in July 2011 to recapitalize the business and accelerate growth. Event management software, especially with a two sided offering like Cvent provides, has the potential to be a winner-take-most market.

Here are notes from the Cvent S-1 IPO filing:

• Mission is to transform the meetings and events industry (pg. 1)
• For some hotels events and group meetings constitute one-third of total revenue (pg. 2)
• More than 6,200 event and meeting planner customers (pg. 2)
• More than 4,700 hotels and venues have purchased marketing solutions from them (pg. 2)
• Offers six products for event and meeting planners: event management software, strategic meetings management software, mobile event apps, pre- and post-event web surveys, ticketing software, and Cvent Supplier Network (pg. 4)
• 1.1 million RFPs were transmitted using Cvent software in 2012 (pg. 4)
• 600 employees in India (pg. 6)
• 1,300 total employees (pg. 8)
• Revenue (pg. 11)
  2010 – $45 million
  2011 – $60.9 million
  2012 – $83.5 million
• Income (profits! – pg. 11)
  2010 – $7.7 million
  2011 – $2.6 million
  2012 – $8.7 million
• Accumulated deficit of $19.5 million (pg. 24)
• Three acquisitions in 2012 (pg. 62)
  Seed Labs LLC – $1.4 million in cash and $0.9 million in stock
  CrowdCompass, Inc – $5.8 million in cash
  TicketMob LLC – $5.2 million in cash
• Research and development expenses were 9% of revenue in 2012 (pg. 92)
• CEO/co-founder owns 16% (pg. 111)

Overall, it’s an impressive story of profitable growth and execution, with a huge market opportunity. I predict the IPO will do well and the public markets will like the company.

What else? What are your thoughts on the Cvent S-1 IPO filing?