Where top VCs are investing in remote events

Published March 17, 2020

The novel coronavirus pandemic has rapidly moved companies into a remote-first world.

Nearly all of the world’s largest events have been canceled, put on pause or pivoted to online-only. In the tech world, event cancellations thus far have included SXSW, GDC, Mobile World Congress, Google I/O, Facebook F8, E3 and others.

As more and more hosts consider staging fully remote events as possible alternatives, we decided to take a deeper look into the venture-backed startups focused on supporting large-scale virtual gatherings, like Hopin and Run The World. To further understand the impact of COVID-19, we asked five leading VCs who have invested in or have knowledge of startups focused on remote events to update us on the state of the market and to share where they see opportunity in the sector:

Sarah Cannon, Index Ventures
Connie Chan, Andreessen Horowitz
Andrei Brasoveanu, Accel Partners
Ryan Kuder, Techstars Anywhere
Paul Murphy, Northzone

Sarah Cannon, Index Ventures

Which trends in remote events/conferencing excite you the most from an investing perspective?