GHENT, Belgium — A Belgian startup building AI-powered personalisation technology for trade show and conference websites has raised €1.4 million in pre-seed funding, as event organisers increasingly struggle to convert website visitors into registered attendees.
Exhibitly, founded by Hendrik Franck and Brent Coppens and based at Ghent's Wintercircus, announced the round this week. New School VC led the investment, with participation from 100IN, Allusion Ventures, and a group of angel investors including Louis Jonckheere, Jeroen De Wit, Pieter Vanermen, Tanguy Serraes, Piet van Waes, Bernard Rossel, Stefaan Rossel, Matthias Stevens, Jürgen Degrande, Wim Vernaeve, and Arthur Stockman.
The company says the funding will be used to expand its team, accelerate product development, and drive international growth.
The Problem With Generic Event Websites
The trade show industry continues to pour money into digital marketing, yet registration rates remain a persistent challenge. According to Exhibitly, a core part of the problem is simple: most event websites offer every visitor the same experience, regardless of who they are or what they do.
A software engineer visiting a tech conference website sees the same homepage as a marketing director or a procurement manager. None of them immediately see why the event is relevant to them specifically, and many leave without registering.
Exhibitly's answer is to add an AI personalisation layer on top of existing event websites. Within seconds of arriving, visitors receive tailored recommendations for sessions, speakers, and exhibitors based on their role and company. The company says visitors using the platform are significantly more likely to complete registration compared to those using traditional event websites.
Importantly, the platform requires no technical integrations from event organisers. It automatically analyses and enriches existing website content using AI, meaning organisers can deploy it without overhauling their current setup.
Built for a Industry Running Behind on Technology
Franck, who serves as co-founder and CEO, was direct about where the events industry currently stands.
"Our current solution gets us a foot in the door, but our ambitions go further. The events industry has never been more relevant, yet it remains years behind on technology. By the end of 2027, we aim to support more than 1,000 events worldwide and establish Exhibitly as the global reference in B2B event intelligence," he said.
That ambition reflects a broader gap in the market. Despite the scale of the global trade show industry, the digital infrastructure supporting it has lagged behind other sectors. Event websites, in particular, have remained largely static experiences even as personalisation has become standard practice in e-commerce, media, and SaaS.
Already Operating Across Four Continents
Exhibitly is not starting from zero. The company already serves customers across the United Kingdom, the United States, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, giving it an early international footprint that the new funding is designed to accelerate.
The startup is currently focused on event organisers, but a second product is in development. That offering is aimed at exhibiting companies, the millions of businesses that participate in trade shows each year as vendors and sponsors rather than organisers. It represents a significant expansion of the addressable market beyond the organiser side of the industry.
Funding to Fuel Team and Product Growth
The €1.4 million pre-seed raise will primarily go toward hiring, with Exhibitly looking to build out the team to support both its existing platform and the new product under development. Product development and international expansion are the other stated priorities.
For New School VC and the syndicate of angel investors backing the round, the bet is on a startup that has identified a clear and measurable inefficiency in a large global industry and built a technically lightweight solution to address it directly.
With trade shows and B2B events continuing to recover and grow following the disruption of the pandemic years, the timing for a platform that helps organisers extract more value from their digital presence appears well chosen.
