Zuddl bags $13 mln funding from Alpha Wave Incubation, Qualcomm Ventures, others

Zuddl, a virtual and hybrid events platform, on Friday said it has raised USD 13.35 million (about Rs 99.2 crore) in funding, led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) and Qualcomm Ventures LLC. The Series A round also saw participation from existing investors GrowX and Waveform Ventures, a statement said.

The fund raised will be used to accelerate product development and scale globally, with a particular focus on the US market, it added. Zuddl was founded by Bharath Varma and Vedha Sayyaparaju in May 2020. The current round of funding will be used for geographical expansion, deepen its tech team, and further build on its offering, the statement said.

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Zuddl grew by over 30x since its inception and counts Fortune 100 and other fast-growing enterprises such as Kellogg’s, Microsoft, Dicks Sporting Goods, Byju’s, Grant Thornton, and Nasscom among its clients. “Zuddl’s growth can be attributed to enterprises’ need for greater customizability and control for their virtual and hybrid events. Most of our customers are global companies with remote teams, who have complex use cases that we help solve easily, all the while being on-brand,” Zuddl CEO and co-founder Bharath Varma said.

He added that attendee engagement is a critical pillar of any event – in-person or virtual, and Zuddl is leveraging its experience of running in-person events and using technology to solve engagement and event ROI. “While the world slowly returns to normalcy, Zuddl helps enterprises abstract the complexity from virtual and hybrid events and focus on their core,” he said.

The virtual events market space is expected to grow at about 24 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next few years according to research firm, Grand View Research. As per LinkedIn’s research, event marketers anticipate that over 65 per cent of the events in the near future, would be either virtual or hybrid.