PR93976

BOSTON and BENGALURU, India, Jan. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

    - The fundraise will help Zuddl accelerate product development and scale

globally

    Zuddl [https://www.zuddl.com/], the all-in-one platform for virtual and

hybrid events, today announced it has closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding, led

by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI), which is backed by DisruptAD, ADQ’s venture

platform, and managed by Falcon Edge Capital, and Qualcomm Ventures LLC. The

round also saw participation from existing investors GrowX and Waveform

Ventures. The fund raised will be used to accelerate product development and

scale globally, with a particular focus on the US market.

    Born in the pandemic, Zuddl was founded by Bharath Varma

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/bharath-varma91/] and Vedha Sayyaparaju

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/vedharaju/] in May 2020. The current round of

funding will be used for geographical expansion, deepen its tech team, and

further build on its offering. Zuddl grew by over 30x since its inception and

today has an enviable list of clients that include Fortune 100 and other

fast-growing enterprises such as Kellogg's, Microsoft, Dicks Sporting Goods,

BYJU'S, Grant Thornton, and NASSCOM amongst others.

    "Zuddl's growth can be attributed to enterprises' need for greater

customizability and control for their virtual and hybrid events. Most of our

customers are global companies with remote teams, who have complex use cases

that we help solve easily, all the while being on-brand," said Bharath Varma,

CEO and Co-founder of Zuddl. "Attendee engagement is a critical pillar of any

event - in-person or virtual. With Zuddl, we are leveraging our experience of

running in-person events and using technology to solve engagement and event

ROI. While the world slowly returns to normalcy, Zuddl helps enterprises

abstract the complexity from virtual and hybrid events and focus on their core."

    The virtual events market space is expected to grow at about 24% CAGR

[https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/virtual-events-market]

over the next few years according to research firm, Grand View Research. As per

LinkedIn's research, event marketers anticipate that over 65% of the events

[https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/marketing-solutions

/resources/pdfs/virtual-events-a-new-reality-v4.pdf] in the near future, would

be either virtual or hybrid.

    Zuddl's differentiation stems from its ability to deliver a high level of

event customization, and powerful attendee engagement. Event organizers are

enabled to customize every detail of their event quickly, and by themselves.

Zuddl solves for attendee engagement by using technology to power

interest-driven networking and implement gamification based on user actions.

    "After being forced to go the virtual events route during the pandemic,

enterprises are now discovering the advantages of hybrid events. Zuddl, through

its hybrid-first model is tackling a unique set of problem for enterprise

events - that of bringing customizability, control and engagement to virtual

and hybrid events, without making it complicated for the event organizers. What

works to Zuddl's advantage is the fact that they are from the events industry

and understand the ground realities too well," said Anirudh Singh, Managing

Director, Alpha Wave Incubation.

    "Zuddl's platform for hybrid events helps enterprises easily customize and

manage events with greater engagement," said Varsha Tagare, Sr. Director,

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Managing Director at Qualcomm Ventures. "We

look forward to supporting their journey to enable new applications and

immersive experiences for the events sector using XR, AI and 5G."

    "We were excited by the vision, strong expertise and speed of execution of

Zuddl's founding team. Bharath and Vedha make a well balanced and exceptionally

talented founding team. Their deep understanding of the needs of event

organizers, speakers, sponsor and above all the attendees coupled with their

product first thinking has made Zuddl offering standout in a highly crowded

space", added Manu Rikhye, Partner, GrowX Venture.

    About Zuddl:

    Zuddl is an all-inclusive virtual and hybrid events platform, which helps

enterprises design immersive branded experiences. Large organizations across

the globe such as Google, Dicks Sporting Goods, Microsoft, Kellogg's and Grant

Thornton trust Zuddl to host their virtual events. For more information, please

visit www.zuddl.com

    About Alpha Wave Incubation

    Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) is a $300 million venture fund, backed by

DisruptAD, ADQ's venture platform and managed by Falcon Edge Capital. AWI has a

dedicated team across London, Bangalore and Abu Dhabi. The fund invests in

early-stage tech-enabled, disruptive start-ups in India and Southeast Asia. In

addition to providing outstanding founders with early-stage capital, AWI offers

access to an unrivaled set of support mechanisms for business-building, while

also helping companies expand globally and open up new markets in the GCC/MENA

region and beyond.

    About DisruptAD

    DisruptAD, ADQ's venture platform, was launched to accelerate the future of

innovation. The platform offers productive incubation, investment and

commercial scaling opportunities for tech start-ups in a state-of-the-art

infrastructure for a digital led age. DisruptAD aims to advance R&D and unleash

the potential of the UAE's innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem through

highly skilled tech talent.

    DisruptAD is attracting and creating a thriving community of founders, fund

managers, incubators, and accelerators to globally build, support and scale

disruptive technologies from Abu Dhabi.

    About Falcon Edge Capital

    Falcon Edge Capital is a diversified global alternative asset manager

co-founded in 2012 by Rick Gerson, Navroz D. Udwadia and Ryan Khoury. Falcon

Edge manages approximately $4bn in assets across public and private markets.

Falcon Edge has offices in New York, London and Bangalore. The firm offers a

variety of investment products and strategies that cover a number of asset

classes, themes and geographies.

    About Qualcomm Ventures

    Qualcomm Ventures, acting through Qualcomm Ventures LLC or its affiliated

entities, has been making strategic investments in technology companies that

have the potential to dramatically transform our world since 2000. As a global

investor, we look to help entrepreneurs build revolutionary businesses that

reshape the world around us. For more information please visit:

www.qualcommventures.com.

    Media Contact:

    Verbly Integrated Communications

    Hitheshitha Mahesh

    hitu@verblyinc.com

    Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1721848/Zuddl_platform.jpg

    Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1721323/Zuddl_Logo.jpg

    Source: Zuddl