Hopin is a place for people to make better connections for a better planet. In the pursuit of this mission, Hopin is announcing its acquisition of Topi, the event tech company I started almost 10 years ago with my co-founder Eric Sellin. We both have joined the Hopin team to lead the development of Hopin’s hybrid and mobile products.

While working at Google, I attended countless conferences and always found the networking experience lacking my desired outcome. I kept meeting the same people, but the ability to meet new people was inefficient, making the networking less effective. So I launched Topi in 2012 to build a better solution.

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The technology we built leverages advanced geo-fencing, deep social media integration, and smart ranking algorithms to enable users to discover others with shared interests, make new connections, and create communities that transcend location. Whether you are attending events in person or online, our mobile platform delivers the same value and experience for all attendees.

For nine years, event planners at well-known brands including Google, Mashable, Inc. Magazine, and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business made Topi an integral part of optimizing their event registration, networking, and lead generation.

Social Media Week, an annual conference hosted in 25+ cities globally with over 75,000 attendees, leveraged Topi to increase interactions and offer seamless access to content, broadcasts, sponsors/exhibitors, agenda, surveys, and more. “Topi brought to life our ambitious dream of integrating an elegant networking experience in the Social Media Week official mobile app,” said Tobi Daniels, SMW’s Founder.

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Better to Gather

Today, I’m excited to see the technology and vision of Topi merging with Hopin, to power the future of hybrid events. Johnny Boufarhat, Hopin’s founder and CEO, told me that he wants to see the progress my team has made continue to flourish under the Hopin brand and that together we’ll invent new ways of gathering and better ways of connecting the world.

When I met Johnny I got a taste of the future and I now see it every day. Hopin is growing quickly — we’re almost 300 people now (Hopin was half a dozen employees this time last year). This growth is undoubtedly fueled by the global market’s shift towards the increasing value of live connections online. The next generation of events is here — 2020 only accelerated its arrival — and the new year is bringing new experiences that will redefine virtual and in-person events as we know them today.

Hopin has an ambitious roadmap ahead in 2021, as we roll out mobile development in phases in 2021. We will also introduce new hybrid-centric features to Hopin’s platform while maintaining the same high-quality event experience familiar to our customers.

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