Naboo raises $70M for an AI platform to manage corporate events

# Naboo Raised $70M to Transform Event Planning into a Corporate Procurement System

French startup Naboo closed a Series B round of $70 million, just a year after raising €20 million in Series A. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, the same fund known for its successful bet on French startup Mistral AI. This funding illustrates growing venture capital interest in automating corporate processes through artificial intelligence, particularly in segments plagued by organizational chaos and inefficiency.

Founded in 2022, Naboo attacks a problem that's clear as day: corporate event planning remains a manual, fragmented, and expensive process. When a large company organizes a conference, corporate event, or presentation, coordinators step in, manually searching for venues, coordinating with vendors, tracking budgets in spreadsheets, and juggling dozens of different services. Naboo offers a fundamentally different approach: a platform that centralizes the entire cycle—from vendor selection to final expense reporting.

The key insight behind Naboo is positioning itself as an operational layer that blurs the line between event management and corporate procurement. The platform uses AI to automate routine operations: it helps find optimal venues based on client criteria, coordinates logistics, manages suppliers, tracks budgets in real time, and generates spending analytics. In essence, Naboo transforms event management into a distinct class of corporate purchases, where everything is subject to processes, standards, and controls, like a proper procurement system.

For large companies, this makes direct financial sense. Automating vendor discovery creates competition among suppliers, lowering prices. Centralized budget management prevents losses and overpayment. Standardized processes save coordinators time, allowing them to focus on the strategic aspects of the event. Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, corporations are seeking tools that directly impact cost control—exactly when such a solution appears.

Lightspeed's success in leading the round is explained by the clarity of the business model. Unlike many AI startups seeking applications for technology after the fact, Naboo works in a proven category. The market for corporate events in large companies is measured in billions of dollars, and the costs of organizing them remain uncovered by any qualified platform. Securing venture funding amid pressure on profitability allows Naboo to accelerate feature development and expand geographic presence—important because events are organized locally, but the platform's logic is universal.

The raised capital will go toward scaling the product and expanding integrations with existing corporate systems. This is critical: a platform at this level must integrate with SAP, Oracle, 1C, local management systems, to become truly indispensable. History shows that startups that become an operational layer for a specific process quickly grow into billion-dollar companies, because buying them out becomes cheaper than retraining employees.

Naboo symbolizes a broader trend: AI creates value not through explosive innovation, but through automating real pain points in corporate processes. It's boring, but profitable—and venture funds, it seems, have already figured that out.