B2B Events Group Hyve Buys Founder-Led Mental Health Conference: Exclusive

UK B2B events organizer Hyve bought Behavioral Health Tech, a conference and media company focused on improving access to quality behavioral healthcare, AMO has learned exclusively. Terms weren’t disclosed. 

The acquisition marks Hyve’s fourth in the past 12 months as well as its entry into the behavioral health sector. Last year, Hyve bought HLTH, a health event company with major trade shows in the U.S. and Europe. That was founded by Jonathan Weiner, who sold Prepaid Expo and Paybefore to Informa in 2007 and 2011, respectively; Money20/20 to Ascential in 2014; and Shoptalk to Hyve Group in 2019. In health, Hyve also owns Vive, an event for senior level digital health leaders. 

BHT, which has a staff of eight, was created by Solome Tibebu in 2020 when she started a modest newsletter and simple online event during the pandemic to address the needs of a community no longer able to gather in person. That burgeoned into in-person events of 2,500-plus attendees, as well as webinars and podcasts—all in all, a “highly profitable” business venture. Weiner has been a mentor to Tibebu and is on BHT’s advisory board. 

This isn’t the last acquisition to expect from Hyve, and likely not the last in the healthcare industry—the company is, however, approaching with caution and care. The focus is on targeting specific, high-potential events in growing sectors, and working with strong, passionate founders. Hyve Chief Executive Officer Mark Shashoua told AMO:

“It’s not like we just met Solome, right? We’ve spent a lot of time with her. These are really targeted, strategic acquisitions. It’s very rare that we’ll look at stuff that is opportunistic.” Tibebu will join the Hyve leadership team.

Hyve’s strategic reasoning behind the BHT purchase includes: 

• Market potential: One in every $5 goes into healthcare in America, with the financial impact of mental health alone at nearly $300 billion a year. That includes lost productivity and healthcare spending.
• Event quality: BHT has become a go-to event for behavioral health professionals, with a large community of payers, providers, innovators and government funders.
• Founder’s strength: Tibebu is a “powerhouse” entrepreneur who built the event from a small community-based initiative to a major in-person conference.
• Scalability: Hyve sees potential to expand the event geographically while maintaining its core essence, potentially starting in Europe.

Founders

Hyve looks very closely at founders and their motivation in starting and building their companies. Shashoua said:

“You’ve got different types of founders, right? So Solome is one who’s deeply, deeply connected to the sector, and is a genuine critical voice of the sector. You then have unbelievable entrepreneurs like Jon Weiner—the sector itself resonates with him—but in the end, he is an expert on how to scale or how to start up these types of events in ecosystems that aren’t being, perhaps, serviced, and that sector is evolving quite quickly. 

Hyve brings its one-on-one meetings program to BHT as well as the expertise to scale, while taking a page from BHT on connecting through media and more with industry stakeholders throughout the year and not just once a year in person. 

“She has found a way to constantly communicate with that community, and that’s something only we can learn from,” Shashoua said. “There’s stuff that we can learn from, and then every time we learn from one, we roll it out across those types of events, so it doesn’t go just one way.” 

BHT will continue to stand on its own, but also explore synergies with the other health assets like its common customer base and “gold dust” speakers (industry leaders) like the head of Amazon health benefits and the head of wellness at Microsoft. Geographic expansion to other countries includes obvious challenges in that healthcare systems are dramatically different from each other, Hyve has already determined that Europe will be the first step abroad. 

Tibebu had been approached by several companies interested in acquiring BHT. She was obviously already familiar with Weiner, and she also had met Jay Weintraub, who sold Manifest to Hyve. Those relationships gave her insight into Hyve that others might not have had, and knowledge of what to expect from becoming a part of the group. 

“I mean, just the experience that I know Jon and Jay both had with Hyve and the potential of BHT for getting more resources and support to pursue some of the priorities I have over the next few years, it was just like, kind of a no brainer,” Tibebu told AMO.