With an $800M Dragoneer merger, Cvent is going public (again)

In a merger with special purpose acquisition company Dragoneer Growth Opportunities Corp. II, Tysons Corner event management org Cvent will be going public — again.

The combined company will operate under the name Cvent Holding Corp, sold on the Nasdaq under the symbol CVT. Through the merger, Cvent will receive $801 million in cash that the company said will be used for product innovation, research and development, debt reduction and market activities expansion. When the deal closes, likely in the fourth quarter of this year, Cvent is expected to have an initial enterprise value of $5.3 billion.

Cvent CEO and founder Reggie Aggarwal said in a news release that as the events industry experienced a huge transformation over the past 18 months, Cvent moved toward expanding its virtual event capabilities. Now, the company and the world have moved to a fully hybrid model with in-person events resume while virtual events still maintain prominence.

Aggarwal. (LinkedIn)

“With the increased digitization of our industry, events are ‘always on’ and have fewer boundaries,” Aggarwal said in a statement. “My management team and our nearly 4,000 employees around the world are excited for the opportunity to continue to innovate and enable our customers to leverage Cvent across their Total Event Program.”

A quick primer on SPACs: A blank check company, also known as a special purpose acquisition company or SPAC, is formed for the purpose of going public, and acquiring another company. A company that is then acquired can be taken public without the usual IPO process. While this type of company has been around for decades, SPACs are having a moment. The number of blank check companies increased fivefold in 2020.

Cvent originally IPO’d in 2013, raising $135 million via 5.6 million shares of common stock on the New York Stock exchange. The company, which has made several of its own acquisitions, was acquired in 2016 by Vista Equity Partners for $1.65 billion, a move that Wall Street Journal reports took the company private again. (Yes, that’s possible.)

On top of the new public offering, a group of investors have agreed to participate in a private investment in public equity — or PIPE — round of $475 million at $10 per share. Fidelity Management & Research Company, Hedosophia, Oaktree Capital Management and Zoom participated in the PIPE, among others.

Dragoneer founder and Managing Partner Marc Stad said that when deciding on the merger, Cvent’s hospitality cloud, on top of its event offerings, was a determining factor that stood out to the company.

“As the world reopens, we expect to move into a hybrid world that combines elements of in-person and virtual events,” Stad said in a statement. “With the optionality, flexibility and reach that Cvent can provide, we expect organizations to increasingly turn to Cvent to expand their audiences and create new, user-friendly ways for both virtual and in-person participants to interact with their events.”

Cvent did not respond to Technical.ly’s request for comment before publish.