Global private equity firm, The Riverside Company, has made a substantial investment in EventsAIR, marking one of the largest ever in a private events technology company.
Additional investors taking part include EventsAIR’s founder, Trevor Gardiner, several other members of the management team, and incoming chief executive officer Matthew Donegan-Ryan.
Based in Brisbane, EventsAIR develops software used before, during and after events to manage registration, attendee engagement, operations, housing, travel, marketing and communications, and has delivered more than 350,000 events across APAC, EMEA and North America.
Riverside will support EventsAIR with its international expansion plans around the globe and will drive the continued evolution of the product to maintain its market-leading features and functionality. It will also selectively consider accretive merger and acquisition by targeting complementary event tech players or expanding into attractive adjacencies.
“Having quickly adapted to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, EventsAIR is ideally positioned to bring in a partner who can help accelerate our global growth ambitions,” EventsAIR founder Trevor Gardiner said.
“We are delighted to be working with the Riverside team and look forward to this next exciting chapter in the company’s evolution.”
“Riverside views this investment as a highly compelling opportunity to build upon EventsAIR’s already impressive international footprint by targeting large and growing customer segments globally where the company has a clear competitive advantage,” Riverside managing partner Simon Feiglin said.
In addition, Riverside will further enhance the management team, with Matthew Donegan-Ryan joining the business as chief executive officer, from 1 April.
Having worked in the industry for his entire career, Donegan-Ryan will bring deep event technology domain expertise and experience working with event planners to the role, continuing the momentum that Trevor Gardiner had established after decades in the role.
“I have followed EventsAIR for over a decade and am consistently impressed by the comprehensive breadth of its offerings,” Donegan-Ryan said.
“EventsAIR now has a market-leading position serving the most complex in-person, hybrid and virtual events globally, and I am thrilled to lead it onto the next phase of its evolution, collaborate with Trevor and the Riverside team, and support the industry for its exploding in-person comeback.”
