Exclusive: Mobly raises $4.3M for event marketing software
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Mobly has raised $4.3 million in seed funding to build a platform for event marketers, CEO Zach Barney exclusively tells Axios.
Why it matters: The funding underscores an increased appetite for in-person networking and data-driven products.
How it works: Mobly helps with managing lead generation from in-person trade shows and other events.
- The startup lets users create a list of contacts by scanning someone's badge or business card. The platform then adds more details such as company information and social media profiles. Mobly can integrate with customer relationship management platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot.
- Barney, previously of Vehlo and Nearmap, and COO Kris Jenkins, previously of ON24, co-founded Mobly in 2023. Barney says he describes himself as a "recovering VP of sales" and was inspired to build Mobly to solve the personal pain of understanding the value of events.
- "Event marketers are stuck in the Stone Ages," Barney says. "The best tool they have is a spreadsheet. There's just all of these weird ad hoc ways of capturing leads."
- Mobly has 23 employees and is based in Lehi, Utah. The majority of its clients are B2B businesses with at least 50 employees, including employee rewards platform Awardco, fintech company B10 Capital and direct mail platform Sendoso.
Zoom in: Jump Capital and Eniac Ventures co-led and were joined by Peterson Ventures, Tenzing.VC, Peak Ventures, Jeron Paul and Francis Santora.
- Prior, Mobly raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Peterson Ventures and $445,000 from an angel investment.
Follow the money: Mobly charges an annual subscription, primarily based on clients' number of events.
- Revenue grew 5x from 2023 to 2024, Barney says. The business is unprofitable.
The intrigue: One of Mobly's differentiators is not purely relying on AI to enrich the data. Instead, the startup has a team of seven data scientists helping vet the lead information and improve its AI models.
- "If you don't have a live human consistently training the model and validating every 90 days or so, then the data is going to get old," Barney says.
What's next: Barney says the funding will be put toward hiring, new product development and marketing.
