RingCentral wants London start-up Hopin's events arm for $50m

On the heels of its C-suite shakeup, the initially undisclosed financial terms of the deal were revealed

Unified communications-as-a-service giant RingCentral plans to buy specific assets from virtual events upstart Hopin for $15m up front with an additional $35m to be paid "based on the achievement of specified performance targets," according to RingCentral in its quarterly regulatory filing.

RingCentral last week agreed to buy Hopin's events management platform and interactive engagement tools to evolve its video communication experiences and expand on the company's video portfolio to address specialised video use cases, like interactive events.

The terms of the deal were not initially disclosed.

Venture capitalists valued four-year-old Hopin, once a tech "unicorn" at around $7.6bn in mid-2021 during a time in which the pandemic was thought to have permanently changed the future of live events and conferences.

Hopin Events, the company's event management platform, will be rebranded as RingCentral Events after the deal is closed.

The events platform allows for the planning and execution of virtual and hybrid events regardless of size and format, from ticketing and registration to post-event polls.

Existing and new clients can host conferences with multi-track sessions, create virtual sponsor booths and networking events. The Events platform is also customisable from a branding perspective, according to Belmont, California-based RingCentral.

"By expanding our video suite of products, the acquisition of Hopin creates opportunities for RingCentral to increase its partner base, with more to offer to partners who are experts in virtual and hybrid event technology," Zane Long, SVP of global partner sales for RingCentral, said in an email to CRN on the deal.

"In addition, it enables our existing 15,000-plus partner base with more upsell and cross-sell opportunities to grow their revenue and provide more value to customers."

Hopin's events arm is known for making meetings highly interactive, engaging, and personalised, RingCentral said.

"We believe our strengths complement each other perfectly, and together, we can redefine the customer experience in the global UCaaS and Events industries. This is a powerful step forward for Hopin, allowing these products to reach millions more users, and letting us focus on scaling our mission of helping people connect meaningfully beyond geographical boundaries," Hopin's founder and CEO Johnny Boufarhat said in a statement on the deal.

Change at the top of RingCentral

RingCentral's current CEO and founder Vlad Shmunis said during the company's second quarter 2023 earnings call on Monday that the company is "very fortunate" to be able to acquire the events asset from Hopin.

"So now, we have video meetings, rooms, webinars and now events and not just virtual events," he told investors.

RingCentral's acquisition of London-based Hopin comes during a period of leadership change for the vendor.

On Monday, Hewlett Packard Enterprise revealed that its CFO Tarek Robbiati would be leaving the company to become RingCentral's CEO. Robbiati, who has been a member of the RingCentral board of directors since December 2022, is replacing RingCentral Shmunis, effective on August 28.

Shmunis will become executive chairman with a focus on driving strategic product vision and innovation at RingCentral at the end of the month.

At the same time, RingCentral also announced that president and COO Mo Katibeh will also be stepping down. Katibeh will stay on as a special advisor to the company to ensure a smooth transition, RingCentral said on Monday.

The UCaaS specialist last November revealed that it was cutting its workforce by ten per cent in light of what the company called "an increasingly difficult macro environment." The company earlier in September laid off 50 employees from its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area.