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, a 1-year-old virtual events platform based in Bengaluru, India, raised $12 million in Series A funding.

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New investor led the round joined by , with participation from existing investors , , l and . Airmeet has raised approximately $15 million since the company was founded last year, including a $3 million seed round last year, co-founder told Crunchbase News.

Airmeet鈥檚 platform features a ballroom-style social lounge with virtual tables for serendipitous encounters and a 鈥渟peed networking鈥� lobby where participants can spontaneously meet and make new connections in one- to-five-minute increments.

Although the company focuses on helping event organizers host interactive and immersive events ranging from a professional meetup to a large-scale festival, the origins of the company came from being a remote company, Mangal said.

鈥淚n India, there is not enough awareness of remote work,鈥� he said. 鈥淢ore people are moving out of big cities, and this is a new way to build connections.鈥�

Airmeet will use the new funding on product development and accelerating growth in regions of importance. In addition, the company plans to grow its team from 60 to 100 across six countries.

Until now, much of the company鈥檚 growth has been by word of mouth, with more than 10,000 events hosted on the platform since July, Mangal said. The goal is to support 10 million people on the platform and to host more than 1,000 events per day.

, vice president of Sequoia Capital India, said in a statement that the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted behaviors in many industries as digitization has gained in popularity. As a result, the , which is poised to grow nearly tenfold to $744 billion in the next 10 years, is ripe for market leaders to drive the transition to online events.

鈥淎irmeet鈥檚 mission is to create a global platform to enable millions of community managers and event organizers across the world to engage with and expand their audience,鈥� he added. 鈥淎nd with Lalit and [his] team鈥檚 focus, execution and innovative thinking, they are strongly placed to achieve their goal.”

Social Lounge photo courtesy of Airmeet
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