Trip planning platform BACH just closed an $8M seed round amid that wedding and travel surge

BACH, the Philly-founded platform designed to streamline bachelor and bachelorette party planning, was making a name for itself last summer when pandemic restrictions were lifting and travel was picking up.

The same trend continues this year, when travel is surging once again, and a truly stunning number of weddings are planned — 2.5 million, the most the US has seen since 1984.

It was the perfect storm for BACH cofounder Mike Petrakis to raise some growth money.

BACH just closed an $8 million seed round, adding $4 million to its initial raise last summer via Corazon Capital. The company is using the money to grow from seven to 16 full-timers in house, and is adding some significant offshore support, for a total of about 30 people working on the platform.

“But the most significant move is to make sure we have enough supply coverage for the demand this summer,” Petrakis told Technical.ly.

The platform allows users to share plans, run polls, create a shared itinerary, track and split expenses, and host a central group chat with all attendees of a bachelor or bachelorette trip. It helps parties find experiences to do while in the cities they’re visiting, and offers more than 800 local vendors across BACH’s 10 current operating cities: Nashville, Scottsdale, Austin, Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, Palm Springs, Savannah, Charleston and San Diego.

Petrakis said the team will definitely be adding cities to their list (Philly, maybe?) as they broach 100,000 monthly active parties this summer; right now they stand around 80,000 a month. BACH’s main focus is on “owning the weekend,” or providing everything fun a party might want to do during the day from a diverse set of experiences.

Corazon brought on a number of great strategic partners with its investment, Petrakis said, specifically in its CEO, Sam Yagan, who led ShopRunner and Match Group.

“We could not have been a better partner in Sam, especially coming from the dating app game with Match to serving bachelorette parties,” Petrakis said.

Though the team is officially distributed, Petrakis loves Philly talent, and his COO, Sarah Sprague, is moving here for a few months this summer as a trial run. The company recently brought on Jon Siragusa as CTO, who’s hired a number of engineers, and will continue to add to its tech scene.

“I believe in the Philly startup ecosystem, and I love to recruit here,” the CEO said.

For the rest of the year, the company will focus its growth on city and vertical expansion, amid one of the busiest times for wedding-related activities. The model is aimed at these types of parties, but users can apply the planning features for trips outside of the wedding universe.

“Our focus is on the marketplace and niche experiences,” Petrakis said. “We want to nail the bachelorette experience, but it’s a great move into group travel.”