PMV fuels continued growth of event-marketing software InviteDesk, as it makes its first move in Scandinavia
Double-digit growth, despite the corona crisis
Willebroek, 5 February 2021 – InviteDesk, an event-marketing SAAS platform, is increasing its financial strength by 700,000 euros thanks to growth funding from PMV. InviteDesk helps companies to improve their return on investment (ROI) in event marketing by getting the right guests to attend their events. Its platform facilitates communication with guests, allows sales and marketing to collaborate more efficiently, and also provides easy access to real-time data.
InviteDesk was founded in 2018 by Mark Van der kinderen and Jan Heiremans, both of whom boast extensive experience in sales and marketing, in organisations such as StepStone and Unilever. They were very soon joined by Matthias Goossens. The idea for InviteDesk emerged from the realisation that events are very costly for companies, but are not always attended by the right guests. Companies were making too many last-minute calls to fill the seats with second or third choice guests, even to the extent of inviting friends and family in a last desperate attempt. InviteDesk helps its customers get more value out of their event investments. Thanks to InviteDesk they can now optimise expenditure, ensure that the right partners attend their events, avoid waste and conduct more business. Furthermore, their solutions are very easily integrated into customers’ CRM or marketing automation tools, allowing customer data to be fully integrated.
Double-digit growth, despite Covid-19
“The pandemic has shaken the events industry to the core. However, it is simply not an option for us to sit around. Companies are continuing their efforts in events in order to reach their customers and prospects, even though these remain online at present,” according to Jan Heiremans, co-founder of InviteDesk. “We believe it will also be possible to organise live events again later this year. In addition, we will see the emergence of hybrid events, whereby guests can choose whether to participate in person or online. We are keen to be ready as soon as this happens.”
“Despite the corona crisis, we are still delighted to have achieved double-digit growth, and we aim to accelerate this growth with further investments in our product, sales and marketing,” says Jan Heiremans.
Webinar application designed in-house
“The accelerated digitalisation of events has also rapidly revealed the challenges of webinars. Unlike live events where people meet in person and have a chat in the corridor, in the digital environment it is very tricky to truly engage guests in the event, and particularly to allow personal interaction between sales people and their customers,” says Mark Van der kinderen, co-founder. “Other webinar solutions do not sufficiently satisfy this need. That’s why we have designed our own specific webinar application, which offers a similar experience to a live event.”
Internationalisation
“Our experience from 2020 has clearly demonstrated that the issues resolved by our product are also on the agendas of foreign companies. And our application knows no boundaries,” says Matthias Goossens, first partner at InviteDesk. “Last week, we kicked off in Sweden with two experienced entrepreneurs, Erik Engström and Christian Witte, in order to conquer the Scandinavian market. Erik and Christian are part of our network, have in-depth experience in business development and have played leading roles in software, events, IT and tech in companies such as Microsoft, SAP, Adecco and StepStone. They were immediately smitten as soon as we showed them our events tool.”
“The Nordic countries are only the first step,” says Mark Van der kinderen. “From Belgium we are also getting in touch with other countries. Our international neighbours are naturally the usual suspects, but we are also looking beyond at countries like Switzerland and Canada, since our software is adept at coping with different languages.”
