Montréal-based turnkey events platform Entr has raised $1.13 million in a seed-stage financing.
The round was led by U.S. venture capital firm Telegraph Hill Capital with participation from iNovia Capital, Peter Kern, Interaction Ventures and Guillaume Jacquet.
Founded last year by Marc-Antoine Bonin, Emeric Noël and Alexandre Vanier, Entr helps enterprises plan and book events. Platform users can select from a curated portfolio of 1,000 Canadian venues and vendors.
Entr, which is debuting in Toronto next month, will use the funds raised to expand across Canada, improve its product, and bring on additional talent.
PRESS RELEASE
Entr, a Turnkey Events Platform, Raises $1.13 Million Seed Round Led by Telegraph Hill Capital
Based in Montreal, Entr is taking on the corporate event industry by providing a platform that allows event planners to book everything in one place.
MONTREAL (PRWEB) October 18, 2018
The company already serves leading enterprises such as Samsung, L’Oréal, BMO, and Google. One year after launching, the phenomenal growth of the startup has attracted an impressive lineup of investors, which include inovia, Peter Kern (Vice-Chairman of Expedia), Telegraph Hill Capital, Interaction Ventures (LP Maurice & François Arbour) and Guillaume Jacquet (Co-founder of Chronogolf).
“Entr team has executed exceptionally over the last year. They have built a platform that provides a lot of value to event organizers and this is shown by the top companies they have as customers. There are significant opportunities to grow in Canada and other countries given the fragmented market” – Luis Gutierrez Roy, Managing Partner at Telegraph Hill Capital.
Entr.ca is a platform that helps corporate event planners book everything they need for their next event. Users can select from a curated portfolio of 1,000 venues and vendors across Canada. By standardizing the information available across its offerings, the platform makes it easy for companies and associations to source, compare, and book verified spaces and suppliers such as caterers, equipment, A/Vs, entertainment, and more.
“We inspect our venues and vendors ourselves with a 200+ point checklist. This allows us to go beyond what a traditional marketplace can offer. We’re creating a standardized experience for event organizers while automating the logistics of event creation’’ said Emeric Noel, Co-founder at Entr.
‘’I love working with Entr, they are efficient and fast to find suppliers across Canada. This makes my job easier and helps me to be proactive about my other tasks’’ – Sabrina Mule, National Event Planner at L’Oréal.
Entr is disrupting the $560B event market, which remains highly fragmented and is an industry where no one currently owns more than 1% of the market share. The traditional approach to event planning has yet to be challenged, pointing to imminent disruption. In this context, Entr has positioned itself to be one of the leaders.
“Anyone who has ever organized an event understands how much this industry is unstructured. It’s challenging and time-consuming to access pricing details, availabilities, and accurate informations. Entr aims to create a new standard for event planners’’ said Emeric Noel, Co-founder at Entr.
Entr stands out, thanks to it’s fast pace of growth. Just one year ago, Emeric Noel and Marc-Antoine Bonin had launched the first beta of the platform. To date, the company has achieved upwards of $2M in bookings from leading enterprises such as Airbnb, Element AI, and Michael Kors.
“Since the beginning, one of our strengths has been to listen to our user base and act quickly on their insights. We’re building our platform alongside our customers to create a product that directly answers to the pain points they experience” said Marc-Antoine Bonin, Co-founder at Entr.
Alongside the funding announcement, Entr will officially be making its debut in the Toronto market next month.
“Toronto is the second largest market in North America for corporate events and the majority of our clients already organize events there. By tackling this market, we will solidify our position in Canada and be able to better serve the national brands we work with” said Marc-Antoine Bonin, Co-founder at Entr.
In the short term, the capital raised will be allocated towards expanding across Canada while continuing to improve the product and optimizing the user experience. The company is also looking for top talent to join them in their mission of innovating the event industry. They currently have a dozen new positions opened in sales and software development.
Contact
Emeric Noel
Entr
+1 4384054774