Local events management and calendar vendor Zvents is announcing today the closure of a Series A funding round totaling $7 million. The round was led by VantagePoint Venture Partners and included Red Rock and NetService Ventures.
Zvents combines a strong product with an API, a very strong team and an impressive customer list. They are establishing themselves as leaders in a particular niche of web services - they are essentially a B2B calendar and events widget provider. I think the funds involved have made a smart investment.
Zvents partners with other media companies to provide an Ajax rich events calendar to embed in their websites. In January Zvents will launch a beta of its new local advertising network, further monetizing the media partnerships it’s building. The company’s showcase customers include the San Jose Mercury News, the Miami Herald and the Denver Post. Zvents says it will soon roll out a free calendar product for venues, events promoters and organizations. The company currently offers a commercial API and highlights startup social networking site Maya’s Mom as a customer. Primary competitor Trumba only recently incorporated Ajax and has announced that it is ending support for its free and small publisher products. Trumba’s customers include the NYTimes auto section online.
Zvents is also announcing that David Carlick from VantagePoint Ventures is joining the company’s board of directors. Carlick was a co-founder of DoubleClick and an investor in Ask and MySpace/Intermix. Carlick will join Rich Melmon, co-founder of Electronic Arts, and Paul Martino, founding CTO of Tribe Networks, on the Zvents board. Gordon Rios, a former principal scientist at Yahoo! Search, has been hired as Zvents CTO.
The company will be rolling out service on Boston.com next month and in the top 50 metros in the United States and Canada over the next year. Our previous coverage of Zvents is here.
Comments
I agree that Zvents could do very well because they have a clear and limited niche, in other words they outline what they do and what they do not do.
The only threat to the company is related to more local services that can possibly cover events more closely.
It’s a shame that they don’t even support Microformats for hCalendar and hCard. Seems like a no-brainer for an online events and venues website.
Bill, I agree.
Space is busy. Yet so is mine.
I think they need a better domain…. CityView perhaps.
Am I completely in left field by saying this is A LOT of money to be giving to an online calendar/event planning site? Maybe my myopia is a side effect of being an East Coaster away from the big Silicon Valley VC money …
SNTC - Scary, isn’t it?
Marshall,
What do you think of http://www.evdb.com and http://www.upcoming.org ?
Sean, I agree with you, they need a better domain name for their company.
Upcoming.org is clean and easy to use, but last time I checked it was filled with spam. I was searching for Concerts in Tokyo but received a list of Viagra promotions.
Keeping the site clean is crucial to maintaing a serious image, but perhaps easier said than done.
Events is very big market, but there are many players with different strategies, and market dynamics will not change foreseeable future.
We started http://www.eventbee.com in 2003, much before anyone thought about event social networking concept. Having this background, I would say 7M is too much if they are focused on developing some niche features, and it is too little if they think they are taking on entire events market.
Watch out for Eventbee 2.0 (coming out in few weeks) with clear revenue model (infact we already have revenue model)
Bala, President, Eventbee
whatever happend to skobee and et al
Fred:
I know the upcoming guys are working pretty darn hard at reducing the spam (It’s the downside of being popular) and have made pretty good headway. It’s an arms race to be sure, but the spam has dropped off.
Congrats Ethan and Tyler and the Zvents team!
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