New funding will accelerate the growth of RainFocus’ leading-edge event marketing and management platform

RainFocus, the next-generation enterprise event marketing platform, announced that it has closed its Series C funding round led by KKR, a leading global investment firm. Existing investor JMI Equity, a growth equity firm focused on investing in leading software companies, also participated in the round. Financial details of the round were not disclosed.

KKR is investing in RainFocus through its Next Generation Technology Growth Fund II, a global fund dedicated to growth equity investments in the technology space. The strategic partnership with KKR and JMI will enable RainFocus to further enhance its event management and marketing technology platform, grow its global footprint, and accelerate its strategic go-to-market initiatives.

RainFocus provides a premier end-to-end solution for setting up, running, and promoting hybrid, in-person, and virtual events — focusing on delivering great experiences, seamless connectivity, and powerful data and insights — all with unmatched global security and scalability. With a flexible and integrated approach to portfolio management and event data, RainFocus is the first platform to solve the challenge chief marketing officers face of bringing together events and marketing strategy through technology. RainFocus’ cloud-based platform powers some of the largest and most sophisticated event portfolios in the world, including VMware, Cisco, and IBM.

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“Our company was founded on the belief that the events industry is ripe for disruption. Existing solutions, both new and old, are failing to unify event data with traditional marketing because they lack the scalability, security, and consistency required to deliver exceptional personalized experiences,” said JR Sherman, CEO at RainFocus. “We’re constantly listening to our clients, and this funding round will immediately accelerate our innovation and tighten our integrations to the martech stack. Most importantly, we will empower our clients to expand their use of the event platform and integrate smaller events, meetings, and virtual experiences as part of their overall demand generation programs and their customers’ journeys.”

“The RainFocus team is pioneering a new approach that combines best-in-class event management with a unified data solution. The result is a transformation in how companies think about events as an integrated part of their investments in data-driven marketing,” said Dave Welsh, KKR Partner and Head of Next Generation Technology Growth.

Jimmy Miele, Principal on KKR Next Generation Technology Growth team, said, “RainFocus has built a flexible and scalable technology and a strong culture focused on delivering a great solution and experience. We can see this in RainFocus’ exceptional client loyalty and explosive growth, which has been sustained during the dramatic shift to hybrid and virtual events over the past 18 months. We’re excited to back this talented team as they continue to enhance their suite of solutions to serve clients across industries and geographies.”

RainFocus is one of the fastest-growing companies at scale in the marketing software space, organically doubling its revenues in the last 12 months and expanding its global footprint. With a client cross-section of the world’s most recognized brands and innovative marketing teams, RainFocus has achieved the following additional growth points highlighting its business traction and platform adoption:

• Rapid platform adoption growth, with 430% growth in events over the last 12 months
• 5.1+ million business users
• Delivery of localized experiences across 167 countries simultaneously
• 9+ million session engagements
• 99.999% uptime

According to The Forrester Wave™: B2B Marketing Events Management Solutions, Q1 2021 report, “[RainFocus] boasts among the broadest list of out-of-the-box technology integrations, training and support services, and native onsite production and rentals services, making it an all-in-one contender for hybrid events leadership when in-person returns.”

As organizations navigate the return to in-person and hybrid events, RainFocus will continue to focus on bolstering the strength of its platform and services, delivering confidence to clients, and maintaining its commitment to innovation of the attendee experience, exhibitor activation, and speaker enablement at its clients’ world-class events.

Latham & Watkins LLP acted as legal advisor to KKR on the transaction.

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