McLean-based Cvent has purchased a pair of upstarts in the past week that design mobile applications for event attendees as part of the company’s effort to extend its event management software onto 
Reggie Aggarwal, founder and chief executive of Cvent.
(Dayna Smith - For The Washington Post)
handheld devices.
Cvent announced Tuesday morning that it paid $10 million for Portland, Ore.-based CrowdCompass, a firm that creates mobile applications for business-related events.
The news comes less than a week after the company paid $4.2 million for Austin-based SeedLabs, which builds mobile applications for consumer-oriented events, such as the National Cherry Blossom Festival and Preakness horse race.
Cvent chief executive Reggie Aggarwal said smartphones have become front of mind for the firm in the last year as an increasing number of people tote them to events, whether its a business conference, concert or sporting match.
Event applications can be used to find information about the event, such as schedules and speakers, to connect with other attendees in real time or communicate via popular social networks, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, Aggarwal said.
“Events are going mobile,” he said. “When you go to an event and you’re not in your office or at your house, that’s when you rely more on. . .a smartphone or iPad because you need to access the information.”
Aggarwal said neither firm will relocate to the Washington region and the acquisitions will add a combined 45 employees to Cvent’s staff of 1,000. These mark the first acquisitions for Cvent, which raised $136 million from investors last summer.
“Part of the reason that we raised the money was so we could make acquisitions,” Aggarwal said. “At the end of the day we’re growing rapidly but there are a lot of interesting areas in our space that we can’t get to. We can’t be all things to everyone.”
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