• MarTech Today
  • Sections
    • Ads
    • Marketing
    • Content
    • Sales
    • Analytics
    • Management
    • Resources
    • More
    • Home
  • MarTech Today
  • Ads
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Mgmt
  • Resources
  • More
  • Events
  • SUBSCRIBE

MarTech Today

MarTech Today
  • Ads
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Management
  • Resources
  • More
  • Events
  • Newsletters
  • Home
Martech: Marketing

ON24 files for an IPO

After a period of losses, ON24 catches the virtual event wave.

Kim Davis on January 15, 2021 at 9:17 am
  • More

ON24, the digital experience platform with a focus on webinars and other virtual events, has filed for an initial public offering on the back of strong growth, especially in Q2 and Q3 of 2020. It plans to be listed on the NYSE as “ONTF.”

In an interview in September 2020, ON24  co-founder and President-CEO Sharat Sharan told us: “It’s not rocket science to realize that customer engagement has basically moved online. We’re all looking forward to physical events coming back, but the trend towards more online customer engagement has been accelerated, and that is going to continue. I don’t think it’s a reversible trend.”

Read our full 2020 interview with Sharat Sharan here.

ON24′ s business. The core of ON24’s proffer to customers is an ability to collect granular data on engagement during events like webinars, using polls, surveys and other features. In its prospectus for the offering, the company says: “We provide a leading, cloud-based digital experience platform that enables businesses to convert customer engagement into revenue through interactive webinar experiences, virtual event experiences and multimedia content experiences.”

ON24 is a veteran vendor by martech standards, created in 1998 as a streaming video platform under the name News Direct, becoming a webinar platform in 2003. For several years, it sought to monetize the capability of hosting events, but in 2013 it launched a self-service webinar product with the lead gen-supporting data layer which became its hallmark.

Turning around losses. The company’s growth in recent quarters was preceded by a period of net losses. The prospectus reports net losses of $17.6 and $17.5 million for 2018 and 2019 respectively. For the nine months ending September 30 2019, the prospectus reports a net loss of $14.1 million; but for the same period in 2020, a net income of $11.2 million.

ON24 recently appointed a new CMO, Steve Daheb, whose resume includes almost six years as SVP of Oracle Cloud, and top marketing roles at Citrix and Symantec. Also, last November, it launched the RevNEXT marketplace, featuring vendors offering complementary components of a revenue-generating B2B tech stack. Participants include Bombora, Demandbase, Drift, Integrate, LeanData and 6sense.

Why we care. ON24 is a high profile vendor in the virtual event space, and the timing of this IPO makes sense. The prospectus correctly identifies the background trends contributing to the wind in the company’s sails:

“Personalized and interactive digital customer engagement at scale is the new imperative. Democratization of content has led prospective customers to self-educate. Traditional automated marketing approaches are increasingly ineffective. Data privacy requirements are constraining automated digital marketing.”



About The Author

Kim Davis
Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech Today. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.

Related Topics

Channel: Martech: Marketing

Subscribe to receive daily martech news and expert insights. See terms.


We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.
See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

MarTech 2021: March 16-17

MarTech 2021: Sept. 14-15

MarTech 2020: Watch On-Demand

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

White Papers

  • The 7 Phases of a Website Redesign
  • Rearchitecting Revenue: Accelerating Demand Through Data
  • Save Your Marketing by Fixing Bad Data, First
  • Precision Demand Generation: Create Meaningful Connections With Your Buyer
  • The Media-First Approach Why visual media must be a primary consideration for e-commerce businesses
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • The AI Revolution Is Coming to Every Stage of Your Buyer’s Journey
  • The Fundamentals of Link Building for E-Commerce & Affiliate Sites in 2021
  • Your Customer is Calling: Make the Most of Your Marketing Spend with Call Tracking
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • Local Marketing Solutions for Multi-Location Businesses
  • Enterprise Digital Asset Management Platforms
  • Identity Resolution Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
See More Research

Register For MarTech - Free

Receive daily martech news and analysis.

Channels

  • Advertising
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Social
  • Commerce
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Management
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • SMX

Resources

  • White Papers
  • Research
  • Webinars

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2021 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.