Date: May 06, 2016 Author: Mike Freeman Source: (
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Whova, an mobile pp company spun out of of UCSD, helps people meet each other at business conferences and events. It has raised $6 million in venture capital. Michael Short
When UC San Diego computer science professor Yuanyuan Zhou took students to technology/academic conferences, she noticed that they often struggled to meet people, despite her urging that it was important for their job searches and careers.
That motivated Zhou, who holds the Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Mobile Computing, to find a solution. She and three former UCSD Ph.D. students created a mobile app targeted at business events, academic meetings and conventions that puts an emphasis on helping attendees link up.
"We are using geeky ways to help geeks like us to know how to socialize at events," said Zhou.
Whova, launched in 2014, now has been used at more than 3,000 gatherings with 350,000 participants in 80 countries, including events put on by the Rockefeller Foundation, MIT, Mitsubishi, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Energy Services Companies and the American Marketing Association.
A little over a year ago, the company raised $6 million from Ivy Capital, Amino Ventures, Oriza Ventures and a few Silicon Valley angel investors. It employs about 20 full-time workers in Sorrento Valley.
Whova isn't alone in offering mobile apps for meetings, trade shows and conventions. DoubleDutch, Attendfly, QuickMobile, Guidebook and others also have apps targeting the market.
"One of the things that has happened over the years is technology has taken a more prominent place at all of the shows," said Clifford "Rip" Rippetoe, head of the San Diego Convention Center. "I would say a majority of the high-end shows would have an app that does (mapping) and lists the schedule. Fundamentally, the show organizer begins to save a ton of money on collateral material because you don't have to print all the show guides."
Like other apps on the market, Whova provides agendas, maps and logistics for each event. But the company tries to set itself apart through networking features to help attendees meet each other.
Those features include LinkedIn and other social media profiles, as well as articles published, a photo and other information, for each attendee. Event organizers simply provide the name and email addresses to the Whova dashboard. Its data analytics technology scours the Internet to provide the background.
"It provides event attendees insights about each other so that they can plan in advance whom they want to meet at the event," said Zhou.
The company also lets attendees message and chat through the app before, during and after the event. Users also can upload paper business cards to the app by snapping a picture with the smartphone camera.
"We focused on event engagement and networking and created a lot of unique features that competitors never had, and it is hard for them to catch up," said Weiwei Xiong, one of Whova's co-founders.
The app is free to smartphone users. Whova makes money by charging event organizers to access it. Along with Xiong and Zhou, who is Whova's chief executive, Soyeon Park and Tianwei Sheng co-founded the company.
There is no recent data about the size of the meeting market in the U.S. But a 2011 study by the Convention Industry Council and PricewaterhouseCoopers estimate that nearly 1.8 million meetings, conventions, trade shows and the like took place in the U.S., with about 205 million total participants.
Zhou previously founded three companies. Her last venture, Pattern Insight, was acquired by VMWare in 2012.
Whova has been growing fast over the past year, with about 10 times the number of events using the app in 2015 over the prior year. Jayrell Ringpis, organizer of Startup Weekend, liked the way Whova helped attendees make contact with each other.
"Our favorite feature was automatically having each of the attendees' profiles and pictures readily available," he said in a blog post. "Collaboration between our participants has never been higher."
