Meet Partiful, the Gen Z party-planning staple that’s handling Apple

When Shreya Murthy and Joy Tao made a decision to release a party-planning start-up in 2020, they picked a service objective of “bringing people together in person.”

The Covid -19 pandemic required the precise reverse.

Despite the obstacle of the pandemic, Partiful made it through, and 5 years later on, the New York start-up is currently made use of by countless individuals to intend occasions such as birthday celebration events, housewarmings and wedding events.

The application’s a fave of those ages 20 to 30, and it’s included 2 million brand-new customers given that January, Partiful CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Murthy informed CNBC. The firm has actually never ever disclosed its precise base of month-to-month customers.

Partiful attracted focus on social media sites after Apple, understood for duplicating attributes from prominent applications on the apple iphone, introduced its very own event-planning solution in February, and the start-up posted a joke regarding “copycats” on its X account.

Of training course, Partiful isn’t the initial party-planning application. It completes versus not just Apple Invites, however additionally Eventbrite, Evite, Punchbowl and others.

Each solution varies somewhat in its target audience and attributes. Evite, as an example, utilizes a “freemium” design, where particular invite styles and various other attributes are paywalled. Eventbrite is commonly made use of to advertise and offer admission to huge public occasions.

What collections Partiful besides its rivals– and attract its Gen Z customer base– is its commonly funny, laid-back styles, a few of which are developed by Partiful’s internal developers.

“Friend invited me to a gathering that doesn’t have a Partiful….feeling lost, confused, unprepared…much like when I (Gen Z) receive a phone call out of the blue,” X user Athena Kan published in August.

For the initial quarter of 2025, Partiful balanced 500,000 month-to-month energetic customers, up 400% year over year, with 9 out of 10 customers on the application based in the united state, according to price quotes offered to CNBC by Sensor Tower, a marketing research company. That compares to Eventbrite’s 4.4 million month-to-month energetic customers, which is up 2% year over year, and Punchbowl with roughly 85,000 month-to-month customers, which is down around 2% contrasted to a year earlier. An agent for Evite informed CNBC that the solution saw greater than 20 million month-to-month energetic customers for the initial quarter of 2025.

It’s vague the number of individuals still utilize Facebook’s once-popular event-planning functionFacebook Events Facebook’s moms and dad firm, Meta, closed down the standalone application.

Murthy and Tao both mosted likely to Princeton University and operated at Palantir Technologies at the same time, but they didn’t meet until they were introduced later by a mutual friend. Both were looking to move to the consumer-facing side of tech. 

Tao, then a software engineer at Meta, wanted to leave the company to focus on products that were more relatable to daily life, and said that the social media company’s goal of keeping users engaged on their apps sometimes can create “perverse incentives.”

“For me, driving more people to spend more time staring at their phone, staring at this endless feed of content, wasn’t super motivating, wasn’t super meaningful to me personally,” said Tao, Partiful’s tech chief and a self-described “avid party planner.”

Meta declined to comment.

Tao and Murthy went through a sort of “dating period” where they asked each other what they thought leading a startup together could look like. Among the voids they identified was how intimate social events, such as birthday parties where a host would be likely to see the attendees again, were still planned on text chains that made it difficult to track, communicate or plan an ideal event time with guests.

“If you’re not sure when people are free, that’s a really annoying problem,” Murthy said.

She and Tao took the leap.

With few in-person events happening during the 2020 lockdowns, Partiful’s engineering team focused on building the platform’s text message-based infrastructure so that the service could be used by both iPhone and Android users. 

Partiful’s team, which has now grown to 25, operates out of downtown Brooklyn. The service is no longer limited to text messages and its website. The company launched apps for the iPhone and Android devices in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and Partiful now serves as a one-stop destination for organizing the different phases of planning and hosting a party. The company has reportedly increased $20 million in a financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

What makes Partiful enjoyable for customers is exactly how adjustable a welcome can be.

Hosts can develop a complimentary birthday celebration welcome with a lime-green apology cover of Charli XCX’s “brat” cd, as an example, or intend a women’ evening out with a cover image of Shrek in sunglasses. They can track “yes,” “no” or “maybe” RSVPs under a picture of Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, and welcomed visitors can utilize a “boop” function to send out arbitrary emojis instead of a straight message to every various other.

Party organizers can additionally send consistent message blasts to the team prior to and after the occasion and take care of an in-app image cd for submitting memories.

Partiful is readily available for any individual to utilize, however Murthy claimed the firm sees one of the most require for the solution amongst young customers in the “postgrad” duration of life. That’s a phase where individuals could be transferring to brand-new cities and far from their recognized university buddy teams.

“You’re starting your adult life and have to not only figure out, ‘How do I rent an apartment? How do I work a new job? How do I exist in this new version of myself?'” Murthy claimed. “On top of that, you’re also having to rebuild your entire social circle.”

For the hosts and partiers in its customer base, Partiful has actually entered into their social regimen, and it has actually remained to acquire grip online. The firm informed CNBC that over 60% of its energetic application customers examine Partiful weekly.

As for Apple, Partiful isn’t sweating its brand-new competing right now.

Apple Invites calls for that customers have an iCloud+ membership to develop occasions, though it’s cost-free to RSVP if a visitor does not have an Apple account. That solution begins at 99 cents a month in theUnited States Apple did not react to an ask for remark.

Partiful is cost-free, a minimum of in the meantime.

Like several various other technology firms that rely upon circulation solutions such as Apple’s App Store, Partiful has a nuanced connection with its much-larger equivalent. Partiful might shed some customers to Apple, however it can additionally take advantage of promo by the application supplier.

That’s what took place in 2024, when Partiful was called a finalist for Apple’s App Store Awards for Cultural Impact, and won Google Play’s “Best App of 2024.” The application stayed an “editor’s choice” badger the App Store since magazine.

For currently, Partiful continues to be positive.

“We haven’t really seen any users that have been leaving Partiful for Apple Invites,” Murthy claimed.

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