The 2022 Web Summit investor’s lounge
Web Summit is the world’s largest tech event—in 2022, 70,000+ attendees from 160 countries head to Lisbon for the annual conference. Dealmakers and innovators at Web Summit shape the VC industry, paving the way for thousands of transactions since 2009.
Within a huge event footprint, where can investors meet with founders and other key players within startups? The investor’s lounge sponsored by PitchBook, that’s where. In addition to providing space for dealmaking, the investor’s lounge is also utilized by attendees for general networking and as a place to rest, recharge (themselves or their phones or laptops), grab a bite, and/or catch up on work.
The mockups below show the general layout of the investor’s lounge prior to the development and implementation of 2022’s creative assets.
The opportunity:
Build brand awareness with the lounge’s exterior walls
PitchBook’s creative team supports the concepting, creation and implementation of a variety of assets for the physical build out of the investors lounge each year. From table decals and wayfinding signage to printed booklets, videos, and more.
For the purposes of brand storytelling, one giant opportunity we have are the lounge’s exterior walls—huge canvases for telling attendees what the PitchBook brand is all about. Here’s what we pitched.
The pitch
Working closely with a designer, senior design manager, copywriter, and creative director, the concepts below were presented to our stakeholders group:
Theme: Insights and analysis to help you stay on top of nascent technologies and create positive impact.
Wall A: Data-storytelling to highlight PitchBook’s best-in-class capital market research and insights; informed by PitchBook Platform data and recent emerging technology reports.
Wall C: A simplified, interactive expression of PitchBook’s Emerging Spaces platform feature complete with data callouts related to specific industries, sectors, and verticals.
The execution:
Interactive brand storytelling on a grand scale
With approved concepts in hand, we went into production mode—keeping our European audience and brand tenets in mind.
Wall A
From a copy perspective, I highlighted four eye-catching data points related to industries that European venture capitalists are interested in.
The H1 reinforced that VCs have the power, and maybe even the responsibility, to tackle big challenges using their innovative ideas and industry know-how. The supporting copy spoke to how emerging technologies are already impacting our lives and how PitchBook can be leveraged by firms to make more informed decisions.
On the design side, circular containers of live greenery teased the full living wall found inside the lounge.
Wall C
For Wall C, we created a simplified adaptation of PitchBook’s Emerging Spaces platform feature—a tool that helps PitchBook clients identify up-and-coming industries before their competitors do.
The H1 invited conference attendees to engage with the wall’s interactive elements—yellow and blue 3D boxes that slide open to reveal a deeper level of analysis on the four industries highlighted on Wall A.
Once a conference attendee slid a 3D box open, they’d find a variety of details related to that sector, including deal activity, total funding raised, and more.
What it all comes down to:
The main event
How did PitchBook’s investor lounge at Web Summit 2022 go over? The space saw thousands of visitors over a four-day period, and Walls A and C were more engaging than any prior iteration.
The custom QR codes developed for Walls A and C garnered 200+ scans and dozens of report downloads—high given the volume of stimuli attendees were inundated by. Additionally, the interactivity gave the team an opportunity to share video snippets of Wall C via PitchBook’s social media—a first.
I think PitchBook’s director of events said it best: “Web Summit flew by! Not captured in our photos are the dozens of opportunities sales opened on day one alone, plus so many happy customers telling us how much they love PitchBook.”
The videos and photos below are of Wall A, Wall C, and other assets developed for the investor’s lounge.
