HopSkip Secures $3M to Transform Venue Sourcing

Industry-leading Platform Continues to Innovate and Streamline Event Planning for Professionals

[Philadelphia, PA, June 27th, 2024] – HopSkip, an intelligent sourcing and booking platform for event planners, is proud to announce that it has raised $3 million in seed funding. The round is led by Conductive Ventures, a venture capital firm that backs early efficient growth companies. The funding will be used to add advanced features and integrations, expand its hotel and venue database, and invest in marketing to drive increased awareness to the meetings and events community. The funding is also on the heels of their new suite of competitive intelligence features poised to bring innovation to venue sourcing.

HopSkip has rapidly grown into a trusted solution for meeting planners and businesses to efficiently source and book hotel events. The platform's innovative approach has garnered significant attention among hotels and event planners.

Event planners, including Progressive Insurance and the American Association of Cancer Research, rely on HopSkip as a trusted solution, and hotel chains, including Marriott, Lowes, and Hilton, look to HopSkip as a high-quality partner.

Turbo-Charging Event Sourcing

Founded in 2019 by Sean Whalin, Greg Leizerowicz, and Luke Whalin, HopSkip addresses the challenges that event planners and businesses face by automating the traditional manual booking process. HopSkip saves time, reduces errors, and enhances the overall sourcing experience.

The platform's comprehensive hotel databases, benchmarking tools, and insightful analytics empower users to make informed decisions and achieve better outcomes for their events.

"This investment will enable us to accelerate our growth, enhance our platform, and provide even greater value to our customers. Our mission is to make event sourcing effortless, and this funding brings us one step closer to achieving that goal," - Sean Whalin, CEO and Co-Founder of HopSkip. 

Empowering Growth and Innovation

With the new funding, HopSkip is poised to significantly enhance its platform with advanced features and integrations, broaden its hotel database, and invest in targeted marketing efforts to reach a wider audience. This expansion will benefit not only event planners and hotels but also Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs), National Sales Organizations (NSOs), Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs), and Marketing and Sales Affiliate organizations.

By creating a more automated, intelligent, and efficient RFP process, HopSkip will facilitate better pricing and superior event experiences for attendees. Additionally, the company plans to grow its team with strategic hires to drive further innovation and support the entire meetings and events booking ecosystem.

“Since the pandemic, the rise of distributed teams and hybrid work arrangements has placed increasing pressure on event planners to find meeting spaces and hotel rooms. 

Consistent with our investment thesis, HopSkip has built a highly capital-efficient and comprehensive software solution, transforming a still mostly manual venue sourcing process. They are not content with just a barely digitized process but are building a platform that combines automation with intelligent data insights to help planners and hotels find each other efficiently. This has led to higher RFP success rates and significant team cost savings.” - Arif Damji, Conductive Ventures. 

About HopSkip:

HopSkip is a pioneering platform that simplifies the process of sourcing and booking business events, conferences, and meetings at hotels. By automating traditionally manual tasks, HopSkip empowers meeting planners and businesses to streamline their event planning process, saving time and improving efficiency. With a commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, HopSkip continues to lead the way in transforming the event planning landscape.

About Conductive Ventures:

Conductive Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm with a focus on software, hardware, and technology-enabled services. With $450 million of capital under management, Conductive Ventures invests in early efficient growth companies led by non-traditional founders. The team is led by institutional venture investors and operators

Media Contact:

For more information about HopSkip and its latest funding round, please email Marketing and Press Relations: info@myhopskip.com