Following a $138 million funding round last December, Bizzabo has been on an impressive shopping spree as of late. Just two weeks ago, the company acquired a Swedish startup, and late last week the Israeli event management startup announced another acquisition.

Smart scheduling for attendees around the world

Bizzabo has acquired x.ai, an AI-powered scheduling tool. The company being acquired develops an automated system for scheduling meetings - by identifying compatible times to meet across time zones, sending follow-ups and reminders, and managing cancellations.

Bizzabo states that the combination of its platform with that of x.ai’s will help event goers easily network and make meaningful connections, while being able to manage discovery of who should meet, as well as when and how. The logic behind the acquisition, according to a chat between Geektime and Boaz Katz, Chief Data and co-founder at Bizzabo, is to help event participants network more efficiently.

Following the acquisition, the Bizzabo platform will feature 3 new tools based on the x.ai technology, including “Meeting Scheduler”, which allows event attendees to easily schedule both in-person and virtual meetings; “Bizzabo for Exhibitors”, enabling companies presenting at events with meeting management technology to find and engage their most relevant customers; and a “Smart Recommendations” engine that  helps plan their event journey and proactively recommends relevant content and people to meet with.

“In 2021 and beyond, we’re doubling down on creating personalized and immersive event experiences for attendees, speakers, sponsors, and organizers. x.ai’s sophisticated scheduling and matchmaking technology will let attendees meet the right people at the right time,” says Eran Ben-Shushan, Co-Founder & CEO of Bizzabo.

Bizzabo has yet to release the full details of the acquisition, but note that x.ai - founded in 2014 in New York - has raised $44 million to date, from leading VC funds, such as Softbank, FirstMark Capital, and IA Ventures. This leads speculations to put the total acquisition amount in the tens of millions of dollars.

As we mentioned earlier, this is not the company’s first dip into the acquisition pool, but rather part of a two week shopping spree. A couple of weeks ago, Bizzabo purchased Whalebone, a Swedish startup developing crowd visualization technologies to make virtual events more pleasant - similar to the changes made by video chat giants Microsoft and Zoom.

Ben-Shushan added: “... we wanted to find the best scheduling engine in the market to support these new generation events [hybrid]. And it’s not just about meetings, there is a massive demand for personalization and matchmaking at events, and x.ai will serve as the technological AI backbone to do exactly that. Our goal with this acquisition is to leverage x.ai’s unique AI technology and talent to make every event of 5,000 people feel like 5,000 different experiences.”