Acai Travel, BoomPop win 'Launch' at The Phocuswright Conference 2025. By PhocusWire | November 20, 2025 Acai Travel has received the People's Choice Award as part of Phocuswright's Launch: Innovation program. BoomPop was named Travel Innovator of the Year, with Wenrix claiming the runner-up spot. The winners were announced at The Phocuswright Conference in San Diego this week. Phocuswright's Launch program is open to companies of any age that are innovating in the travel space, giving them the opportunity to present new ideas to the audience at The Phocuswright Conference. AB Tasty, Etraveli Group, TripGain, The Data Appeal Company, Gimmonix Technologies and Vio.com also participated in this year's competition. Acai Travel, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2024, provides artificial intelligence (AI) agents built for travel. The company was co-founded by CEO Riccardo "Ricky" Vittoria, CTO Pavel Pratyush and chairman Henry Chen Weinstein. AI-focused events and group travel company BoomPop is headed up by co-founder and CEO Healey Cypher and co-founder and chief product and design officer Blake Hudelson. Wenrix describes itself as "travel's embedded AI platform," offering a solution for agencies. The company is run by CEO Amir Balaish, CPO Tor Leelo and CTO Armon Avrahamy. You can learn more about Launch and view the alumni companies here.

Breaking: AI SaaS BoomPop just raised $41M in a funding round. The corporate event industry is undergoing a significant transformation, with automation and smart AI solutions becoming the key growth drivers. BoomPop, the AI-powered corporate event planning SaaS platform, has announced a $41 million funding round. Read on to see why it is big news for the entire SaaS world. Key facts: - Total Funding: $41 million (comprising $25M in equity and $16M in debt/credit from Silicon Valley Bank). - Lead Investor: The round was led by Wing VC. Other investors include well-known funds. BoomPop: product and history. BoomPop was launched in early 2023, focusing on group travel and events. Founders Healey Cypher and Blake Hudelson saw that planning corporate off-sites and retreats remained a "painfully manual" process, despite the rise of hybrid work. Blake Hudelson and Healey Cypher, BoomPop co-founders. Courtesy photo. Their product is an AI-native SaaS solution that acts as a co-pilot for the organizer. You simply type a request, for example: "I need a 50-person founder summit near San Francisco in Q2 with memorable activities." BoomPop's AI analyzes millions of data points (hotel prices, weather, local events) and generates ready-made, detailed plans. The company has demonstrated explosive growth, a key factor in securing this funding. BoomPop was recently named the 7th Fastest-Growing Software Company on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list (ranking 115 overall), based on its percentage revenue growth from 2021 to 2024. The problem BoomPop solves: the chaos of corporate events. To understand why investors poured $41 million into BoomPop, you have to understand the massive problem they are solving. The corporate events market is huge, projected to reach over $600 billion by year 2030. However, planning these events is extremely difficult. The top 5 Pain points in event planning. Event planners, whether they are professionals or "accidental planners" (like executive assistants), face constant headaches. BoomPop's AI directly targets these issues: | Pain Point | Old Way (Manual) | BoomPop Way | | Budgeting | Manually compare quotes, guess on prices, often overspend. AI compares options and keeps the event on budget. | | Venue Sourcing | Endless emails and calls to venues, waiting for answers. AI searches vetted venues and sends ready options in minutes. | | Group Logistics | Manually tracking 50+ individual preferences, dietary needs, and travel times. The platform automates guest management, RSVP tracking, and provides 24/7 AI support for guests. | | Lead Times | Planning takes weeks or months under deadline pressure. AI generates complete, bookable itineraries, cutting lead times. | | Data Fragmentation | Event data (attendee lists, budgets, feedback) is scattered across spreadsheets and emails. All event data is managed in a single, centralized SaaS platform. | The investors. The equity round was led by Wing Venture Capital (Gaurav Garg). Significant participation came from venture firms like Atomic, ACME Capital, Four Rivers, Thayer Investment Partners, FOG Ventures, and Gaingels. The round also attracted a high-profile group of individual investors, including MLB All-Star Alex Rodriguez, Brian O'Malley (HotelTonight, Fora Travel), Dane Glasgow (CPO of Paramount), and Christopher Payne (former President of DoorDash), among other prominent Silicon Valley founders. What this means for the AI SaaS: the Vertical gold rush. This major funding round is a powerful confirmation of the Vertical SaaS model (Software for vertical markets). AI is being applied to solve very specific and complex problems within a niche. BoomPop's success shows that investors are looking not just for software, but for deep, specialized AI tools. Vertical vs. Horizontal SaaS: why vertical is winning. - Horizontal SaaS is a tool that works for everyone across all industries. It's broad but not deep. - Vertical SaaS (like BoomPop) is a tool built for one specific industry (corporate events). It's deep, specialized, and understands the unique language and workflows of that industry. The $41 million investment in BoomPop is more than just a financial milestone. It's a clear signal that AI is poised to completely change the corporate events industry. As CEO, Healey Cypher said, "nothing replaces authentic human connection," and BoomPop's technology is designed to make that connection simpler and more accessible than ever before.