Judges named AI-powered event planning platform BoomPop as the winner of the Innovate: Launch competition at this week's Phocuswright Conference in San Diego.
Co-founded by Healey Cypher and Blake Hudelson, BoomPop functions as a planning co-pilot, with users able to start the planning process with a short, natural-language query, detailing the sort of event they are hosting, the number of attendees, the timing, the approximate location and the types of activities they wish to include. BoomPop then analyzes the needs against data points including hotel and venue pricing along with flights, weather data, other major events happening at the same time in the location and past itineraries.
"When you get to negotiating the [request for proposal] for the hotel, it's not hard," Cypher said. The AI can analyze the RFP, let the user know what is negotiable, and then review contracts, he said. Once a deal is in place, BoomPop also uses AI to automatically generate itineraries and a website for the event, and it can manage RSVPs.
Companies on the platform "have an insight to every event that has ever taken place in the company," Cypher said. "We are a CFO's best friend."
Hotels on the platform also gain insights, such as their win rates on RFPs, why they are losing RFPs and lost revenue opportunities, he said. The platform reports more than 500,000 vetted vendors, including venues, restaurants and activities.
BoomPop launched in 2023 and last week announced a $41 million funding round led by Wing Venture Capital. Other investors included Atomic, Acme, Four Rivers, Thayer Investment Partners, the Fund of Operators Guild and Gaingels as well as several individual investors including Paramount chief product officer Dane Glasgow, former DoorDash president Christopher Payne and baseball star Alex Rodriguez.
The company last week announced two new hires as well: former SDI Meetings & Incentives president Craig Dooley as its VP and general manager and former Fareportal and Expedia executive Indrajit Bavan as VP of partnerships.
AI technology company Acai Travel, which has built agentic technology to reconstruct the travel tech infrastructure, earned People's Choice honors at the Launch competition. Judges also named Wenrix, which uses AI to automate processes and provide price assurance for agencies, as the competition's runner-up.
Judges for the Launch panel included head of Amadeus Ventures Suzanna Chiu, American Express Global Business Travel VP of AI and automation strategy Marilyn Markham, Clear Sky Associates CEO Ellen Keszler, Expedia Group SVP of corporate development and strategy Harshit Vaish, F-Prime Capital principal Betsy Mulé, Launchpad General chairman Jim Hornthal, Pine5 Partners founder Erik Blachford and Travel Again Advisory partner Michael McCormick.