Cvent
“Can a 25-year-old event-management platform capture the payment, spend, and AI-workflow layers on top of every event it already hosts?”
Founded1999
HQTysons Corner, VA, USA
FoundersReggie Aggarwal, David Quattrone
Total raised$136M+ (pre-IPO), later PE-backed
Latest roundPrivate Equity acquisition by Blackstone (2023)
Valuation$4.6B (Blackstone take-private, 2023)
IndustryHorizontal SaaS / Event Management
The story
Founded 1999 as event registration SaaS; survived the dotcom bust as a bootstrapped survivor before raising $136M in 2011. Public/private/public/private cycle (IPO 2013 → Vista 2016 → SPAC 2021 → Blackstone 2023) reflects the company's steady cash-flow profile more than any pivot. The material embedded-finance shift is the 2025 replacement of Cvent Payment Services with Cvent Payments — a Stripe-powered acquiring stack white-labeled inside the platform — moving Cvent from a payment-gateway aggregator to an embedded payments MoR-adjacent product for event organizers.
Product timeline
1999
Founded as event management software company· founding
2011
Raised $136M growth round from NEA and Insight· funding
2013
IPO on NYSE (ticker CVT)· ipo
2016
Taken private by Vista Equity Partners· acquisition
2021
Went public again via SPAC merger with Dragoneer· ipo
2023
Taken private by Blackstone for $4.6B· acquisition
2025
Cvent Payment Services (CPS) sunset Dec 31; replaced by Cvent Payments (embedded Stripe)· pivot
2026
Launched CventIQ AI platform; $1B product-investment commitment· product
The stack
3 layers disclosed in Cvent’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Card network
in the full report
Accounting
in the full report
Accounting gap: significant
8 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.