CrowdCompass, a Portland startup whose mobile apps are used to power events, including the 2012 Seattle Science Festival and the Lions Club 95th International Convention, has been acquired for $10 million by Mclean, Virginia-based Cvent. The acquisition follows Cvent’s recent purchase of Seed Labs, which develops apps for concerts, festivals and sporting events.
Founded in 2009 Dave Shanley, Brian Felder and Tom Kingsley, CrowdCompass has built 435 apps across various platforms to date, with those apps receiving more than 500,000 downloads to date. In addition to industry organizations and trade shows, CrowdCompass’ client list includes E*Trade, Daimler and Intuit.
CrowdCompass wrote in a blog post that they are looking forward to allying with Cvent, a leading event management company with 950 employees and more than 10,000 customers.
“Their industry-leading event management tools combined with our native mobile apps means innovative answers to the challenges that arise when planning events and conferences,” wrote CrowdCompass co-founder Kingsley in a blog post. “Becoming a part of Cvent will allow us to operate on a greater and much faster scale than we ever have before. In turn, we’ll help accelerate the popularity of their events and meetings by staying in front of developing technologies.”
Like Seattle’s Pathable, which raised $500,000 in financing last summer, CrowdCompass looks to make events more interactive and fun by increasing communication through social networking tools and other features within the apps.
Now, on to the fun side of this announcement. Check out the hilarious video that the Pabst Blue Ribbon-drinking founders of the company put together, riffing off the TV show Portlandia.
Classic!
