• Goldcast creates Netflix-style virtual and hybrid events for B2B marketers.
  • The company works with clients like Microsoft’s GitHub, Hootsuite, and Intuit.
  • It just raised $28 million in Series A funding from private-equity firm Westbridge Capital.

Goldcast, which creates Netflix-style virtual and hybrid events for B2B marketers, closed on a $28 million Series A funding round led by private-equity firm Westbridge Capital, with participation from venture capital firm Unusual Ventures.

Goldcast has now raised a total of $40 million after receiving $10 million in seed funding from Unusual Ventures in February.

CEO Palash Soni, a former product manager for mobile marketing platform InMobi, cofounded Goldcast in 2020 with Chief Operating Officer Kishore Kothandaraman, a former finance exec for healthcare company DaVita Kidney Care and Boston Consulting Group associate; and Chief Technology Officer Aashish Srinivas, a former engineer for Walmart’s now defunct Jet.com.

Goldcast’s clients include Microsoft-owned IT company GitHub, Hootsuite, and Intuit. It employs 85 people, evenly split between the US and India.

Soni said Goldcast’s point of difference is that it gives clients learnings from event that they can then use to advertise them.

“Let’s say you have an event of 2,000,” Soni said. “We can see if someone showed interest in machine learning sessions and answered a poll saying machine learning is a priority for them.”

Goldcast is trying to reimagine the stuffy conference arena by taking inspiration from Netflix. It automatically directs for example does the next conference session like Netflix. “People binge-watch content on Netflix because of how engaging and user-friendly it is,” Kothandaraman said.

Goldcast plans to use the new funding to invest in technology to further improve the experience.

“As digital events increasing become the norm, there is a strong market opportunity here and Goldcast is leading the pack,” said Westbridge cofounder and managing director Sumir Chadha, who joined Goldcast’s board.

Kothandaraman said fundraising in the current uncertain economy wasn’t easy.

“We had such great traction, both revenue growth and great retention metrics, but still investors were very wary and there was definitely a lot more diligence on the strength of the core business,” he said.

Despite the return of in-person events, economic uncertainty has caused businesses to host smaller virtual and hybrid events that are cheaper than big in-person conferences, Soni said.

“People are craving in-person experiences but larger conferences are not getting the anymore,” Kothandaraman said. “B2B companies use digital events to get more narrow down the funnel, to host regional workshops with target audiences.”

Scroll down to read the pitch deck Goldcast used to woo investors.