🚀 Get Ready for the 500Million Marketplace Launch!
Dear Shareholders,
Let’s be blunt: the market still undervalues Nextech as “event software.” That frame is outdated. Nextech is building an AI Event Operating System (Eventdex + Map D) and adding a transaction layer Krafty Labs Marketplace that sits directly inside exhibitor + sponsor spend.
And here’s the key point to make this crystal clear:
✅ We are NOT leaving the software space — software is still a massive TAM
Eventdex + Map D remain the foundation: registration, mapping, exhibitor monetization, lead capture, analytics, and event execution— the operating system that runs the event.
Our investor materials cite an Event Management Software market size of ~$8.4B (2024) and position Nextech as the AI-powered operating system in that category.
Independent market research estimates the EMS market at $8.40B in 2024, growing to $17.33B by 2030.
Internally, we’ve framed the market as roughly ~$8–16B in 2024, expanding to ~$17–35B by 2029/2030
Translation: software remains the recurring, scalable core — and it’s a huge addressable market. Krafty doesn’t replace software. It multiplies it.
🚀 Now the part the market is underpricing:
NEW - Krafty Labs Marketplace TAM
Events are not just workflows. They are commercial ecosystems where exhibitors and sponsors spend real money for attention and leads. The global scale is enormous:
32,000 exhibitions worldwide in 2024
4.7 million exhibiting companies
318 million visitors
That’s not “engagement.” That’s a transaction economy — and Krafty is being built to sit directly in the flow of that spend.
💣 The Internal Krafty Marketplace TAM (within Nextech’s existing ecosystem)
We already operate over 1,000 events in our ecosystem, typically with 100–500 exhibitors per event, which implies:
👉 100,000 – 500,000 exhibitor participations across our events annually (our internal baseline).
Now apply a simple marketplace penetration scenario:
If 10%–20% of exhibitors purchase an activation through Krafty:
Low scenario: 10,000 – 20,000 purchases
High scenario: 50,000 – 100,000 purchases
At an illustrative ~$5,000 average exhibitor activation spend:
$50M – $100M in marketplace volume (low case)
$250M – $500M in marketplace volume (high case)
✅ Key takeaway: our current internal ecosystem alone supports ~$500M in potential exhibitor-side marketplace volume under stated assumptions.
Important: The figures above are illustrative scenario math based on stated assumptions (e.g., $5,000 per exhibitor activation) and are not financial guidance.
⚡ Sponsor Spend = the second accelerator
Sponsor transactions operate at much higher price points (often orders of magnitude higher than exhibitor activations). In our internal unit economics framing, an illustrative per-event model shows how exhibitors + sponsors can drive ~$10M of marketplace volume per event under stated assumptions.
Again: illustrative assumptions to demonstrate magnitude — not guidance.
The value beyond revenue: AI data‑gathering operating system
Here’s the deeper strategic point that matters more than GMV:
Krafty isn’t just a marketplace. It’s a sensor network for the event.
Every activation is an AI data capture event:
who engaged
where they engaged (Map D)
what they did
what they scanned
what converted into leads (Eventdex)
Our unified platform materials explicitly describe combining behavioral and spatial data into deeper analytics (heatmaps, traffic flow, and contextual reporting) — exactly the kind of instrumentation sponsors and exhibitors pay for.
And our EOS narrative is clear: the platform is built to replace fragmented point tools with one integrated system, and the Krafty experience layer upgrades event software into a measurable revenue platform by capturing high‑intent engagement and generating quality leads.
Even our investor deck language frames Nextech as AI‑native, with an AI layer (“Semantic Brain”) and AI workflows/matchmaking as part of the platform advantage.
This is the real moat: the marketplace doesn’t just add transactions — it adds data density, which increases:
sponsor ROI proof
exhibitor rebook rates
organizer pricing power
platform stickiness
That data flywheel is the long-term value beyond near-term revenue.
Why software + marketplace together is the re‑rating setup
Most event software companies are capped by subscription ARPU.
Nextech is building a stack where:
Software (Eventdex + Map D) runs the event (massive TAM, recurring engine).
Marketplace (Krafty) monetizes the show floor and feeds the AI data OS with real engagement signals.
That’s how event software evolves into an AI monetization platform — the OS captures the workflow, the marketplace captures the spend, and the AI layer captures the intelligence.
Final takeaway...
If you only model Nextech as an $8B software TAM story, you’re missing the second engine:
✅ Software TAM is massive and still core
✅ Krafty internal marketplace TAM is ~ $500M (exhibitors alone, illustrative)
✅ The real long-term value is the AI data-gathering OS that turns engagement into measurable sponsor intelligence and event monetization.
This is not a pivot.
It’s a platform expansion.
Sincerely,
Evan Gappelberg
Chief Executive Officer
Nextech3D.ai