Airmeet provides an alternative to Zoom for hosting large events

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to work and socialize through online video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Houseparty. But for organisers to host virtual events with a much larger participation has become a challenge, a problem that Airmeet is solving.

Founded less than a year ago by Lalit Mangal, Manoj Singh and Vinay Jaasti, Airmeet helps organize meetups, company events and workshops. It claims that it can now accommodate upto a million concurrent attendees. 

During the lockdown in India, Airmeet has seen its event numbers double every week over the past month with communities organizing over 1,000 member events at least thrice a week.    

“It's a virtual venue where you can move around — jump from one table to another,” said Mangal, chief executive of Airmeet. “The product is built specifically for events with a backstage, stage and a social lounge.” 

As employees began working from home, video conferencing app Zoom witnessed a stupendous rise from 10 million to over 200 million monthly users within three months. Its share price has also soared. 

But security concerns with Zoom have pushed the Indian government to issue an advisory calling it unsafe. 

Airmeet’s alpha product was launched in November following which they started hosting some public events on the platform. This led to the company getting noticed by its early investors. 

“Some of our investors got to know about our product when a few of the participants started tweeting about it,” recalled Mangal. This was last year when the company raised $400,000 in a seed round. 

And in March, as the country was grappling with the pandemic, the founders closed a follow-on seed round of $3 million after having a discussion with investors over Airmeet. 

This round was led by Accel Partners along with participation from Venture Highway, Global Founders and a few others.  

Airmeet is now focused on building the product for multiple-format events including job fairs. “Most people consider networking as an important part of attending an event and that’s a big focus for us,” said Mangal.