It goes without a doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted us in an almost irreversible manner. While we adjust to the new normal, offline venues such as theme parks, zoos, museums, etc. are reeling from the pandemic’s after-effect as they either remain closed or struggle to attract patrons. Amsterdam-based AI driven-ecommerce platform Convious helps out offline proprietors in this aspect and it has now raised $12M million in a latest funding round.
Expanding the business
The latest Series A funding for Convious was led by Begin Capital Market One Capital, MillionMonkeys and FJ Labs joined the round as well, along with their existing investor, Capital Mills.
This new funding round will be utilised for the startups’ expansion, which entails setting up new offices in the US, France, UK, Germany, and other countries. Furthermore, their sales and the product development teams will be expanded, as the company goes from its current employee count of 65 to 125 next year.
In an interview with TFN, Convious CEO and founder Camiel Kraan comments, “We’re actually amidst opening our UK and French offices as we speak. Reason is we’re following a ‘beachhead customer’ strategy. In this case, these customers have their base in the aforementioned countries. Next up is the United States, which will follow a mid 2022 timeline.”
“Out of home entertainment is one of the few large markets that has not yet gone through a digital transformation. Convious has built a must-have tech solution for the industry with a mission to enrich the experience for venue managers as well as for visitors,” says Ruslan Sarkisyan, Managing Partner at Begin Capital. ”We see Convious as a clear market leader globally, and are proud to support the Convious team on its way to transforming the industry.”
One platform to do it all
Convious’ key offering is its cloud based platform, which is said to be a one-stop solution for most offline venue managers. It is touted to not only connect operators with visitors, but also enhance their experience, increase conversions, and manage all internal operations from a single place. Overall, Convious is capable of processing all sales transactions, including tickets, food, and even hotel accommodations, thanks to the Artificial Intelligence integrated within it. The same AI curates personalised offers and sells tickets at dynamic real-time as well.
Convious boasts of serving 125 companies from 16 countries. Some notable ones include Snowworld, Plopsa Group and Looping Group. As per Convious, in 2021, their conversion ratio was increased by 86 percent on average with the revenue increasing by a notable 201 percent.
Offline challenges and more
However, onboarding clients from an offline industry is bound to be challenging. “The offline industry has been served too long by inadequate vendors with antiquated solutions making it all the more difficult for them to embrace something new and disruptive as what we offer,” Kraan notes.
Convious is also working with several new pan European leading companies. It will reveal the client list in Q1 2022.
