top of page
MeetingPlay
Technology
SaaS Platforms
Event Engagement Platform
Won event-tech scale by merging with its most direct competitor at the exact inflection point the industry needed it most — combining with Aventri in January 2022 as hybrid events became permanent rather than pandemic-temporary, then immediately acquiring a five-year integration partner (eventcore) to close its own registration gap rather than building that capability from scratch.
1
MODEL
BUSINESS MODEL
SaaS
model bm
HOW THEY BUILT IT
- Built as an event technology platform providing mobile event apps, attendee networking, virtual and hybrid event delivery, and engagement tools for meeting and event planners, competing directly against Aventri in the same event-management software category for years before the two companies merged.
- Merged with Aventri in January 2022, receiving a growth equity investment from Sunstone Partners and Camden Partners specifically to combine complementary strengths into a single 'dominant, full-service event software provider' — the combined company (MeetingPlay + Aventri, later rebranded Stova) immediately claimed a combined reach of over 50,000 events, 10,000+ companies, and 7 million attendees annually.
- Acquired eventcore, a Seattle-based enterprise-level event registration technology platform, in June 2022 — notably, MeetingPlay had already worked with eventcore as an integration partner for five years prior, with co-founder Joe Schwinger describing the acquisition as 'finally getting married after working together for a long time,' illustrating how a long-standing partnership can naturally mature into an acquisition once strategic timing aligns.
- Positioned the combined entity's growth explicitly around solving the specific gap that most event-tech providers hadn't kept pace with — registration technology, which co-founder Schwinger noted was 'stuck where it was in 2019' even as other areas of event tech advanced rapidly during the pandemic's forced innovation.
HOW TO ARCHITECT IT
1. Consider merging with your most direct competitor at the exact moment your shared category faces a structural shift (hybrid events becoming permanent post-pandemic) rather than continuing to compete separately for share in a category both companies understand is about to consolidate anyway.
2. Look at your existing long-term integration partners (a company you've worked with for years via API integration) as natural acquisition targets once the timing is right, since a proven, multi-year working relationship substantially de-risks post-acquisition integration compared to acquiring an unfamiliar company.
3. Identify the specific sub-category within your broader industry that has lagged behind overall innovation (registration technology 'stuck in 2019' while virtual/hybrid delivery technology advanced rapidly) and prioritize acquiring or building capability there specifically, rather than assuming uniform innovation across every part of your product suite.
DISTRIBUTION MODEL
Direct Sales, Enterprise Sales
dm
HOW THEY OPERATIONALIZED
Sold via direct sales to corporate event planners, associations, and enterprise marketing teams organizing conferences and trade shows, reinforced post-merger by cross-selling Aventri's and eventcore's existing customer relationships into the combined platform's broader feature set.
HOW TO REPLICATE WHAT WORKED
What worked: merging with a direct competitor at the exact structural inflection point the shared category faced (hybrid events becoming permanent), and acquiring a long-standing integration partner rather than an unfamiliar company to reduce post-acquisition integration risk. Trap if copied blindly: event-tech saw 'record investments and acquisitions' during the pandemic specifically because of forced, urgent innovation — a founder considering a similar merger-and-acquisition consolidation strategy outside a comparable structural shock should recognize that the timing and capital availability that made this specific combination work may not be replicable in a more normal market environment.
| PATTERNS OF THIS MODEL
PATTERNS IN MERGING WITH A DIRECT COMPETITOR AT A CATEGORY INFLECTION:
1. MERGING WITH YOUR CLOSEST COMPETITOR AT THE MOMENT A CATEGORY IS CONSOLIDATING BEATS COMPETING FOR SHARE IN A MARKET BOTH SIDES KNOW IS ABOUT TO CONTRACT.
2. LONG-STANDING INTEGRATION PARTNERS ARE THE LOWEST-RISK ACQUISITION TARGETS. Years of technical collaboration substantially de-risks post-deal integration.
3. IDENTIFY THE SUB-CATEGORY THAT HAS LAGGED WHILE THE REST OF THE MARKET MODERNISED, and prioritise acquiring or building there specifically.
4. POST-MERGER BRAND CONSOLIDATION IS INEVITABLE. Deciding which identity survives before closing avoids a customer-visible period of confusion.
What companies with this model reveal
| OPPORTUNITY INTELLIGENCE
GOLDMINE 1 — MERGE WITH YOUR DIRECT COMPETITOR AT THE MOMENT THE CATEGORY CONSOLIDATES.
Standard: combining with Aventri in January 2022, backed by Sunstone and Camden, created a full-service provider reaching 50,000+ events and 7M attendees annually — faster than either could have grown alone into a market both knew was about to concentrate.
GOLDMINE 2 — ACQUIRE THE PARTNER YOU HAVE ALREADY WORKED WITH FOR YEARS.
Standard: eventcore had been an integration partner for five years before the June 2022 acquisition. A proven multi-year working relationship substantially de-risks post-deal integration.
GOLDMINE 3 — TARGET THE SUB-CATEGORY THAT LAGGED THE INNOVATION CYCLE.
Standard: registration technology was described as stuck in 2019 while virtual delivery advanced rapidly. Uneven innovation within your own category is where acquisitions pay.
THE PIT — THREE COMPANIES MERGED IN SIX MONTHS IS THREE PLATFORMS AND THREE CUSTOMER BASES TO RECONCILE.
The combined entity rebranded to Stova, meaning MeetingPlay, Aventri and eventcore identities were all retired within roughly a year of customers choosing them.
THE SECOND PIT — EVENT TECHNOLOGY DEMAND REVERTED SHARPLY AFTER THE HYBRID PEAK.
MOVE WITH CAUTION — PE-BACKED ROLL-UPS PRICE FOR SYNERGIES THAT ARRIVE, IF AT ALL, AFTER THE CHURN.
Untapped Business Model / Gaps / Goldmines / Pits
Patterns & Insights
2
MARKET
mkt mt es
MARKET TYPE
Consolidated Market
WHY THEY WON
Event management technology consolidated rapidly during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, as hybrid and virtual event capability shifted from a temporary necessity to a permanent industry requirement, driving mergers like MeetingPlay-Aventri and substantial fundraising/acquisition activity across the category (competitors like Hopin also raised significant capital and made many acquisitions during this period). Transferable principle: a structural shock that permanently changes customer requirements (pandemic-driven hybrid event necessity) can accelerate consolidation across an entire category within a very short window, rewarding companies willing to merge or acquire quickly rather than compete separately.
ENTRY STRATEGY
Greenfield Entry
EXECUTION
MeetingPlay's growth into a comprehensive event platform came substantially through the 2022 merger with Aventri and subsequent acquisition of eventcore, the fastest route to comprehensive event-lifecycle coverage compared to building registration, virtual delivery, and mobile app capability independently within the available consolidation window.
FOOTHOLD STRATEGY
fs
Beachhead Strategy
The original beachhead was corporate and association event planners needing mobile event apps and attendee networking tools for in-person conferences — a segment MeetingPlay served for years before the pandemic-driven shift toward hybrid and virtual event capability broadened the target customer base to include organizations needing comprehensive event-lifecycle technology.
GROWTH CAMPAIGN
CAMPAIGNS THAT WORKED
The January 2022 merger with Aventri, backed by Sunstone Partners and Camden Partners growth equity, immediately creating a combined reach of 50,000+ events and 7 million attendees; the June 2022 acquisition of long-standing integration partner eventcore, closing a registration-technology gap the pandemic had exposed as lagging behind other event-tech innovation; the subsequent rebrand to Stova, consolidating all three companies' brands into a single unified identity.
KEY LEARNING
If your industry faces a structural shift that permanently changes customer requirements, consider whether merging with your most direct competitor — rather than continuing to compete separately for share — could combine complementary strengths faster than either company could build independently, and look at your existing long-term integration partners as natural, lower-risk acquisition targets once the timing aligns.
gc
Market Context
| MARKET INTELLIGENCE
THE STANDARD: A structural shock that permanently changes customer requirements accelerates consolidation across a category within a very short window.
RULE 1 — WHEN REQUIREMENTS CHANGE PERMANENTLY, MERGE RATHER THAN REBUILD. Combining complementary capabilities is faster than developing them under time pressure.
RULE 2 — COMPLEMENTARY STRENGTHS ARE THE TEST OF A GOOD MERGER. Registration plus engagement is a whole product; two similar vendors is a cost exercise.
RULE 3 — CONSOLIDATION WINDOWS OPEN AND CLOSE IN QUARTERS. Waiting for clarity means the available partners are already taken.
RULE 4 — INTEGRATION COST TYPICALLY EXCEEDS THE HEADLINE PRICE. Plan the org design and platform migration before closing, not after.
MARKET TYPE: Consolidated Market (event technology), post-shock.
| MARKET ENTRY PLAYBOOK
THE STANDARD: MERGING WITH ADJACENT SPECIALISTS IS THE FASTEST ROUTE TO FULL-LIFECYCLE COVERAGE WHEN THE CONSOLIDATION WINDOW IS OPEN.
RULE 1 — COMBINE REGISTRATION, VIRTUAL DELIVERY AND MOBILE INTO ONE OWNER.
Buyers want one vendor across the event lifecycle; assembling it is faster than building three products.
RULE 2 — CONSOLIDATION WINDOWS CLOSE.
When a category is being rolled up, the choice is to acquire, be acquired or be left subscale.
RULE 3 — THREE MERGED PRODUCTS MEAN THREE MIGRATIONS THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES.
Plan the unified platform narrative before renewal conversations begin.
How to enter
| FOOTHOLD STRATEGY PLAYBOOK
THE STANDARD: Years of serving one event format is what allows rapid repositioning when the format changes.
RULE 1 — BUILD DEEP RELATIONSHIPS WITH ORGANISERS BEFORE THE MARKET SHIFTS. Existing trust is what makes a customer accept a completely new product from you overnight.
RULE 2 — ATTENDEE ENGAGEMENT IS THE ORGANISER'S MEASURABLE OUTCOME IN ANY FORMAT. The metric survives the shift from physical to virtual to hybrid.
RULE 3 — A SHOCK REWARDS EXISTING RELATIONSHIPS MORE THAN EXISTING PRODUCTS. Customers buy from who they know when they have no time to evaluate.
RULE 4 — HYBRID REQUIRES BOTH CAPABILITIES PERMANENTLY. The cost base doubles while the market normalises back toward physical.
How to get the first strong position
MARKET PATTERNS & PLAYBOOK
3
MONEY
money rev pri
REVENUE MODEL
Subscription, Contract Revenue
PRICING MODEL
Value-Based Pricing
WHY THEY WON
Revenue combines per-event and annual subscription/licensing fees for event technology platform access, scaling with event size, feature modules (registration, mobile app, virtual/hybrid delivery), and the increasingly comprehensive post-merger product suite.
Pricing is typically negotiated per event or on an enterprise-wide annual contract basis depending on event volume and feature modules selected, targeting corporate event planners and associations who evaluate cost against attendee engagement outcomes and reduced need for multiple disconnected point tools.
TARGET AUDIENCE
CUSTOMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR
tg cb
Corporate event and meeting planners (buying comprehensive event lifecycle management for conferences and trade shows); associations and membership organizations (buying registration and attendee engagement tools for annual conferences); enterprise marketing teams (buying hybrid and virtual event delivery capability for customer and employee events).
Sales-assisted, typically an annual or per-major-event contract decision involving event planning, marketing, and sometimes IT stakeholders, evaluating cost against the comprehensiveness of the combined platform versus assembling multiple disconnected point tools.
| PRICING INTELLIGENCE
What makes this model effective & make customers pay
Custom-built event experiences are priced per event against production budgets, not software rate cards.
RULE 1 — BESPOKE DELIVERY PRICES AGAINST EVENT PRODUCTION, WHICH IS AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE LARGER.
Corporate event budgets fund staging, venue and AV. Software inside that budget is a small line.
RULE 2 — CUSTOM WORK CARRIES SERVICES MARGIN AND SERVICES SCALING PROBLEMS.
High-touch delivery limits growth and inflates revenue that prices like a consultancy.
RULE 3 — CONSOLIDATION FOLLOWED THE VIRTUAL-EVENT BOOM AND BUST.
MeetingPlay combined with Aventri to form Stova. Categories that scale on a demand shock consolidate when it passes.
RULE 4 — LARGE ENTERPRISE EVENTS ARE THE ONLY SEGMENT THAT SUSTAINS CUSTOM PRICING.
Mid-market buyers will not fund bespoke work.
An enterprise event team is buying an experience that reflects on their brand. Where the purchase is judged by executives attending, production quality prices against reputation, not against features.
PRICE & REVENUE
| Revenue Risk - The biggest threat to revenue stability
Combining per-event and annual licensing ties revenue to event volume and produces sharply seasonal cash.
Any events business has one catastrophic failure mode when gatherings stop.
Post-merger product suites carry overlapping capability and migration projects customers experience as disruption.
Enterprise event organisers concentrate revenue into few relationships.
Merged with Aventri to form Stova (2022); no standalone figures published.
Where the model can break
4
MOTION
GROWTH EXPANSION MODEL
COMPETITIVE STRATEGY
motion ge cs
Horizontal Expansion
HOW THEY EXPAND
MeetingPlay expanded from mobile event apps and attendee networking into comprehensive event registration (via the eventcore acquisition), virtual/hybrid event delivery, venue sourcing, and data analytics, sequenced through the Aventri merger and eventcore acquisition to close specific capability gaps rather than building each function independently.
Encirclement Attack
HOW THEY COMPETE
By merging with its most direct competitor (Aventri) and then acquiring a specialized registration partner (eventcore), MeetingPlay pursued an encirclement strategy — building comprehensive coverage across the entire event technology value chain simultaneously rather than competing incrementally in any single sub-category against more specialized point-solution competitors.
GROWTH ENGINE
GTM
ge n gtm
Partnership Growth
Growth compounded through the maturation of a five-year integration partnership (with eventcore) into a full acquisition, and through the Aventri merger's combined customer base cross-selling opportunities across a now much broader product suite. It would break down if the newly unified Stova brand failed to successfully integrate three previously separate companies' technology stacks and customer relationships into a genuinely coherent single platform.
Direct sales to event planners and enterprise marketing teams, reinforced post-merger by cross-selling opportunities across the combined MeetingPlay, Aventri, and eventcore customer bases under the unified Stova brand.
SUSTAINING MOATS
Switching Costs, High Customer Lock-In, Brand Power, Technology Advantage (complex enterprise scenarios)
moat
The combined Stova entity's moat is the comprehensiveness of its unified event-lifecycle platform (registration, mobile apps, virtual/hybrid delivery, analytics) built through merger and acquisition, combined with the switching cost of migrating an event organization's registration history, attendee data, and integrated workflows to a competing, less comprehensive point solution.
| MOAT INTELLIGENCE
THE STANDARD: Custom-built event experiences command premium pricing and cannot be scaled, which makes services margin the central strategic question.
RULE 1 — BESPOKE DELIVERY WINS ENTERPRISE EVENTS AND CAPS THE BUSINESS. Large organisations pay for tailored experiences, and every tailored experience consumes people rather than software.
RULE 2 — HIGH-TOUCH SERVICE IS THE SWITCHING COST, because the vendor knows the client's event history, stakeholders and constraints — knowledge that resides in the account team.
RULE 3 — CONSOLIDATION IS THE PATH TO PLATFORM ECONOMICS, since combining registration, engagement and production under one owner is the only way to convert services revenue into recurring value.
THE SIGNAL: event technology splits between scalable self-serve platforms and premium production businesses. Both work; confusing one for the other produces a company with services margins and software expectations.
Why this company remains defensible
ARR & TAKEAWAY
ARR Journey - what to do at each stage
PRE-$1M ARR — BUILD CUSTOM EVENT APPS FOR LARGE CORPORATE EVENTS
Enterprise conferences want branded, bespoke experiences rather than a templated app. Custom delivery is a services-heavy but high-value entry.
Sell to corporate event teams and agencies with real budgets.
$1–5M ARR — CUSTOM DELIVERY IS THE MARGIN PROBLEM
Every bespoke app is project work. Productise the common elements or the business scales with headcount.
WATCH: delivery hours per event.
$5–10M ARR — THE VIRTUAL SURGE INFLATED THE WHOLE CATEGORY
Demand in 2020–21 was borrowed. Companies that hired against it faced severe corrections.
$10–50M ARR — MERGE TO BUILD A PLATFORM
MeetingPlay combined with Aventri in 2022, backed by private equity, later operating as Stova — consolidation of event registration and engagement into one platform.
$50–100M ARR — INTEGRATION IS THE REAL WORK AFTER A MERGER
Combining two event platforms produces overlapping products and customer-visible migrations. Sequence them away from event seasons.
NOTE: standalone revenue is not disclosed.
$100M+ ARR — NOT CONFIRMED
Rule: services-heavy custom delivery produces high revenue and low multiples. Productise or merge — those are the only two exits from that structure.
COPY PLAYBOOK : What Worked → What Failed → What to Replicate → What to Avoid
THE STANDARD: Merging with a direct competitor at a shared structural inflection point, and acquiring a long-standing integration partner rather than a stranger, reduces post-merger integration risk.
SEQUENCE:
1. Identify the inflection that changes the category for everyone.
2. Combine with a peer facing the same shift rather than fighting through it.
3. Prefer acquiring an existing integration partner, whose systems and people you already know.
WORKED: Merging at a genuine structural inflection, and choosing a familiar integration partner to reduce post-acquisition integration risk.
CAUTION:
1. THE CAPITAL AND TIMING THAT MADE THIS COMBINATION WORK CAME FROM A PERIOD OF RECORD CATEGORY INVESTMENT DRIVEN BY FORCED INNOVATION. Outside a comparable shock, the same consolidation logic may not find willing capital.
2. MERGERS OF PEERS PRODUCE OVERLAPPING PRODUCTS AND CUSTOMER-VISIBLE MIGRATIONS.
bottom of page