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An app that helps users plan bachelorette parties has raised a $9 million Series A round and is readying to expand outside of its niche after it quadrupled revenue in 2022.
Bach, which launched in 2020 and last year raised an $8 million seed round, secured its latest investment from the Pritzker Group, with support from existing investors Corazon Capital, Freestyle VC and Oversubscribed Ventures. Corazon Capital is led by Phil Schwarz, the former chief marketing officer of Tinder, and entrepreneur Sam Yagan, who co-founded OkCupid. The Philadelphia startup’s funding now exceeds $17 million.
The startup is also in the process of venturing outside of the bachelorette space with a goal of being “the go-to place to book fun experiences for any group travel,” Bach Founder Mike Petrakis said. Later this month, Bach will expand the marketing of its services to bachelor parties and generic group travel. It is also doubling its current city offerings by the end of the first quarter to 30.
To help facilitate the expansion and capture a larger audience, the company is launching “Bach on Web,” a browser-basedversion of the app.
Up until now, Bach has served as a resource for bachelorette groups to coordinate, plan and book vacations in 15 cities across the United States. A group of users can book Airbnbs and flights, vote on plans, split bills and reserve different experiences from an array of options in each city, all through the app. Users will be able to do the same for the expanded areas of travel via the app and Bach on Web.
Current destinations include bachelorette party hotspots like Nashville, Tennessee; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Las Vegas, Nevada. Petrakis said the goal is to have at least 50 destinations and as many as 100 by the end of this year. Philadelphia could be one of those cities, he added.
Bach grew significantly in 2022, quadrupling year over year revenue and doubling the amount of experiences available to users in the past six months to 1,600. The growth has helped the startup secure a substantial foothold in the bachelorette party market, which it says is worth $17 billion.
To date, some two million users have booked over 500,000 trips through Bach. In 2023, Petrakis said the goal is to have 300,000 parties booked. That would roughly translate to one in five of all U.S.-based bachelorette parties in the calendar year, the company estimated.
Bach plans to retain its current branding, at least for the time being. Petrakis said a brand redesign could come in the next 12 months if the web rollout goes as planned. That might include branding more consistent with general group travel.
“The goal with Bach on Web is to have serious outsized growth,” Petrakis said. “We’re optimistic Bach on Web could put us in a very fortunate situation.”
That includes more than tripling revenue in 2023, though Petrakis said quadrupling it again isn’t out of the question, but didn’t disclose specific revenue figures. In 2024, depending on how expansion goes, Petrakis is looking for Bach to raise additional funds or target profitability.
“The plan is to grow exponentially again, to see how deep we can go with the bachelorette market, and how well we do with other groups,” he said.
The company now has over 30 employees, up from 14 a year ago.
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