“When George Floyd was murdered on May 25, we started to really look inside of ourselves. “A year ago, I’m embarrassed to say, of the 27 people on the team, not a single one was Black or brown,” Andersen said. After the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter unrest, Andersen had to grapple with uncomfortable truths. It had grown its headcount to 27 without a single Black employee.
With Bevy, they wanted to build a platform for enterprise communities, but the pandemic forced them to focus on virtual communities and digital events.Ī year ago, Bevy was looking at a different problem.
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The event software company is also managing to grow and raise significant sums of money while focusing on diversity within its ranks.Bevy CEO Derek Andersen and cofounders Joel Fernandes and Alex Bendig started Bevy in 2017 after finding success with Startup Grind. Final Takeawaysīevy is now valued at four times the amount the company was worth when it last raised money in May 2019. The event software business has a goal of having Black employees make up 20% of its workforce by September. Having 0% of its workforce comprised of Black employees a year ago, Anderson, now the CEO of Bevy, said the number has since gone up to 14%. This is particularly meaningful for Bevy as it is seeking to boost diversity within its own workforce, meaning Black workers can also benefit from the success of the company. As stated by Axios, Bevy is “the latest to diversify who gets to share in the upside of a startup - typically it’s white men, while others have historically been shut out of deals.” Furthermore, 70% of the individuals who participated in the funding round are Black. The event software startup said that 20% of the $40 million of capital raised came from Black investors.
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However, what’s most notable about the Series C round of this company is the level of diversity. The investors included Accel, LinkedIn, PayPal’s Peggy Alford, retired Olympian Michael Johnson, and former Beats by Dre executive Omar Johnson. A total of 41 different investors participated in the Series C round. The round closed this month attracted a significantly larger crowd of investors - and was also Bevy’s biggest round to date, valuing the startup at $325 million. California-based venture capital firm Accel led that round. The company then pulled in another $15 million to advance its business - this time from three investors - in May of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In its first funding round, a Series A in 2018, Bevy raised $6.4 million from five different investors, led by Upfront Ventures.
Including this most recent round, the startup has raised at least $61.4 million for its business over the past four years. The virtual conferences and events company now works with numerous big-name businesses, including Google, GoPro, Epic Games, eBay, Twitch, Slack, and Salesforce.
The event software company has continued to grow ever since, pulling in millions in fundraising and acquiring CMX, a business that provides a community for professionals, in 2019. However, the potential of the technology was quickly realized, and the startup was founded soon after. The flagship technology of the company - a software that allows companies to plan virtual conferences and events within their own platform - was originally just a tool of Andersen’s previous business, Startup Grind. What Is Bevy?īevy was founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs Alex Bendig, Derek Andersen, and Joel Fernandes.
However, it’s not just the cash injection this company is excited about regarding its Series C, as Bevy reported a uniquely diverse round with 20% of the capital coming from Black investors. The California-based startup, which sells event software, managed to seize momentum from the COVID-19 pandemic, with this recently closed round, a reflection of the positive movement. Bevy has raised $40 million in a Series C funding round.
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