Cisco to acquire Socio Labs for livestreaming large events
Cisco on Wednesday announced its plans to acquire Socio Labs, an event technology platform that it intends to use to make Webex Events a better tool for live, large-scale events. The idea is ot build a platform well-suited for event coordinators organizing "hybrid" events that combine in-person and virtual attendance.
The five year-old Socio Labs, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, started as an in-person event management solution but built a virtual event suite at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers tools that help event organizers plan entire events, from registration to post-event analytics.
The acquisition follows Cisco's December purchase of Slido, and audience engagement tool with capabilities like polling, trivia, Q&A and gamification.
Cisco plans to combine Slido's and Socio's capabilities with Webex's virtual meeting capabilities. With its new capabilities, the platform will enable live streaming, sponsorship, networking and advanced analytics, as well as continuous engagement before, during and after events.
The Socio acquisition is expected to close in Cisco's Q4. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Once the deal closes, the Socio Labs team will join the Webex Customer Experience team. Socio will also remain a standalone tool.