As the events industry continues to undergo rapid transformation, Cvent’s recent acquisitions of ON24 and Goldcast signal a strategic shift toward deeper enterprise engagement, as well as stronger alignment across marketing and events. While both deals strengthen Cvent’s position, they also raise important questions about integration, data strategy, and long‑term platform vision. This blog explores the challenges that set the stage for these acquisitions, what motivated the deals, and the key questions that Cvent must address going forward.

Cvent Must Move Beyond The Event Team Buyer

Despite its long-standing leadership in event management technology, Cvent has faced strategic pressures as market expectations have evolved. Historically, the platform has sold into event teams, limiting its influence with marketing stakeholders who play an increasingly important role in evaluating event technology. This has reinforced the perception of Cvent as a tactical execution platform rather than a core component of the martech stack.

At the same time, the connection between events and marketing is growing tighter — marketing, operations, and IT are getting increasingly involved in decisions around event technology. To succeed, Cvent needs to broaden its reach across a wider set of decision‑makers.

The Strategic Logic Behind Cvent’s Acquisitions

Against this backdrop, acquiring ON24 and Goldcast represents a strategic effort to shift Cvent toward marketing and enterprise buyers while capitalizing on broader industry convergence across events, content, and demand generation.

Commercially, both deals add meaningful revenue and strengthen Cvent’s story ahead of any future IPO or strategic sale. ON24 reported 2025 revenue of $138–139 million and held cash of around $175 million, making a $400 million acquisition price attractive (compared to a peak valuation of over $2 billion in 2021). Goldcast featured on the 2025 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 based on revenue growth from 2021–2024.

Moreover, both acquisitions bring substantial enterprise credibility. ON24 and Goldcast ranked among the top 10 event tech vendors in Forrester’s Q1 2025 State Of B2B Events Survey and are frequently referenced by Forrester clients in conversations around virtual event technology.

The strategic value extends beyond revenue and enterprise reach. Goldcast adds advanced agentic AI video editing and content creation capabilities with strong enterprise adoption. ON24 contributes deep capabilities in event data capture, analytics, and demand marketing workflows.

The Integration Challenge Ahead

The acquisitions raise many questions. Will Cvent unify its portfolio of virtual event solutions into a single integrated platform or continue to operate multiple standalone products? Eighteen months after its acquisition, Splash still appears to function independently and compete with Cvent Essentials.

Technical questions remain. How will back-end architectures, workflows, and event data be harmonized? What’s the migration plan for ON24 and Goldcast customers, and how will customer support be managed? How will Cvent approach pricing and cross-sell across its suite?

How Cvent answers these questions will determine whether it becomes the leading enterprise all-in-one platform with deep connections into marketing — or a portfolio of strong but fragmented capabilities.