Singapore event-planning platform nabs its first institutional fundraising

Event-planning platform Delegate has raised US$1 million in a pre-series A funding round led by a Singapore-based family office and former Zopim (now Zendesk Chat) executives, with participation from existing investors.

The fundraising marks the first institutional raise for the Singapore-based startup since its inception in 2015. Back then, the company’s co-founders – Melissa Lou and Jacqueline Ye – saw an opportunity to use technology in “a very archaic industry that had pretty outdated practices.”

Delegate co-founders Jacqueline Ye and Melissa Lou / Photo credit: Delegate

“We’ve built Delegate to be the digital platform that connects different stakeholders of the events industry and to be an all-encompassing solution for anyone planning an event,” says Ye. To date, the company supports 70,000 users and 1,700 vendors.

It plans to use the fresh capital to expand its team for technology, product, and business development and to introduce new product features to its community of event vendors and users.

Delegate also wants to eventually leverage on blockchain technology, which will allow for a more transparent way of transacting between users and vendors.

“We’re suggesting having reputations stored on the blockchain so that every stakeholder will be more accountable and reliable,” Ye explains. “This would eventually reduce the volume of event cancellations and disputes that have been apparent in the industry for years.”

With an established presence in Singapore and Hong Kong, Delegate will use part of the funds to spread its reach to other international markets such as the US and Australia.

The two potential markets will be a change of pace for Delegate due to cultural differences. Nevertheless, the company believes that more developed markets may respond better to its product as it “serves markets with a strong culture of DIY event planning, whether for work or personal reasons.”