Cvent in its first earnings call since it completed its merger with special purpose acquisition company Dragoneer Growth Opportunities Corp. II on Dec. 8, 2021, reported a 25 percent year-over-year increase in fourth-quarter revenue and a 4 percent increase in full-year revenue.
“We delivered a very successful 2021,” Cvent CEO and founder Reggie Aggarwal said Thursday during the company's earnings call, “and we're entering a world where in-person events are coming back. Virtual events are now mainstream, and more organizers want the best of both with hybrid events. And our platform is built to power all three of these event formats—in-person, virtual and hybrid—which we like to call the triple threat.”
Cvent’s total fourth-quarter revenue was $144.7 million, an increase of 25.3 percent from the comparable period in 2020. This included Event Cloud revenue of $102.9 million, a 31.5 percent increase from the comparable period in 2020, and Hospitality Cloud revenue of $41.8 million, a 12.1 percent increase.
Cvent’s total full-year revenue was $518.8 million, which was a 4 percent increase from 2020. Event Cloud revenue was $362.1 million, up 14.6 precent year over year, and Hospitality Cloud revenue was $156.7 million, down 14.2 percent.
Cvent's net fourth-quarter loss was $21.5 million, compared with a $16.7 million net loss in the comparable period in 2020. Its full-year net loss was $86.1 million net compared with an $83.7 million loss in 2020.
Still, “because of the continued adoption of our hybrid virtual in-person platform,” said Aggarwal, “we are well positioned going into 2022. Therefore, we are reaffirming our full-year 2022 revenue guidance that we gave investors in July of '21 of $622.6 million in revenue.”
Momentum in 2022
Aggarwal pointed to client gains in 2021 particularly within pharmaceutical and higher education verticals. In addition to "winning new logos," as he put it, Aggarwal said Cvent forged deeper relationships with existing clients in 2021. He noted the success of Attendee Hub as an additional sale to current clients as well as the success of Cvent's virtual meetings offerings.
On the hospitality side, Aggarwal said Cvent focused on educating local markets about Covid-19 recovery to encourage reinvestment in advertising and content hosting in the Cvent platform, which represents 60 percent of its hospitality revenue. The other 40 percent comes from request-for-proposals and other software solutions that help property-level managers liaise and contract and close business. Aggarwal said that business expanded with key clients as well in 2021 as hotel brands expanded their portfolios and brought more properties onto Cvent software systems.
Going into 2022, the company is looking at several growth pillars.
In terms of booking momentum, the company said to expect the boldest volume jump from the first quarter of 2022 to the second quarter, as companies rev up meetings schedules before leveling off in the back half of the year.
To serve in-person events, Cvent will push their on-site event technologies, which enable marketers to track and measure attendee engagement. In addition, the company expects demand for touchless check-in and health and hygiene products like Cvent HealthCheck to remain robust.
The company said it would also invest heavily in video capabilities as part of the Cvent Studio product that launched in 2021. As clients return to in-person events but maintain demand for virtual and hybrid solutions with high production values, Cvent remains confident in the Studio offering.
Aggarwal also mentioned the company's Instant Book solution, which launched last year. Instant Book allows non-professional meeting planners to book simple meetings online with live meeting room, food and beverage and audiovisual inventory without an RFP. He said the product would extend the Cvent value proposition to a new type of buyer and would reduce labor stresses for hoteliers, who have struggled to focus resources on replying to smaller meeting RFPs. Automating this process has been on the Cvent roadmap for years, and while the company said it did not expect Instant Book to deliver huge revenues in 2022, it nevertheless would invest in the product and extend it internationally in 18 languages.
The simpler process inaugurated with Instant Book may also influence how Cvent moves forward with its core technology platform, Aggarwal hinted. "A new and refreshed user experience will help cement our market position with our current mostly professional meeting center audience and it will also enable our product to be more suitable for consumer and non-business-oriented events," he said.