• Vilnius-based event planning marketplace Breezit attracts USD 2M of Pre-Seed investment
• The platform successfully expanded geographically – to the Californian market, as well as functionally – from weddings to other private event types
• The new investment will facilitate the startup’s further expansion in the USA and the deployment of AI solutions for increasing the platform’s functionality

This September, Breezit – the Lithuanian-American marketplace for event venues and vendors – announced the closing of a sizable Pre-Seed round of investment. The USD 2M round was led by the Lithuanian fund Practica Capital, joined by BADideas.fund.

Wedding Planning Behind the Times

Breezit was originally launched in Vilnius by a team of entrepreneurs coming from diverse backgrounds. As is often the case, the idea came from a personal pain. After the co-founder Artūras Asakavičius got engaged, he started seeing all sorts of hassles in the world of private events – finding venues, dealing with vendors, the whole booking mess. It’s way behind the times compared to how we book tickets, hotels, or Airbnbs. The more he looked into it, the clearer it became that tackling this issue needed a crew with a mix of talents.

Mr Asakavičius had already kicked off a company before, Aurelija Gintaliene was a pro event planner with over ten years under her belt, Lukas Junokas came from the beauty business, and Mantas had been the growth guy in a bunch of tech companies. They joined forces to bring their A-game to smooth out the rough edges in one of the hugest industries out there – wedding and other event planning.

‘Although it’s an undeniably crowded field, the event planning market is lagging incredibly when it comes to digitalization. It’s dominated by outdated classified portals and overpriced subscription services. Breezit saw this opening and took it,’ Practica Capital’s partner Arvydas Bložė points out.

‘The market is currently controlled by traditional listing portals that hold strong organic positions due to their SEO efforts. To take on these established players, it’s essential to develop not just a highly advanced product but also to capitalize on external market shifts. This is exactly what we’re witnessing now, in the wake of the pandemic and the evolving dynamics of the search market. These changes present an opportunity to challenge the status quo and the Breezit team is well positioned to do so,’ Mr Asakavičius adds.

The COVID Impact

According to the co-founder, before COVID hit, couples planning events usually met up with venues and vendors in person. The pandemic changed that, and today, they prefer sorting out their venue and vendor options online. Additionally, the pandemic really hit the finances of event vendors hard, so they’re on the lookout for ways to trim costs and run things leaner.

Reportedly, event costs themselves skyrocketed due to rampant inflation. The average price for a wedding in California increased from USD 28K in 2021 to USD 30K in 2022, and the average cost for a wedding venue rental rose USD 500 in that same time frame.

That’s where Breezit comes in, making life easier for both the couples and the vendors. The startup presents a professional event planning digital marketplace with highly detailed pricing information of venues and vendors (catering, DJs, photographers, florists, etc.) to help couples discover services that match their requirements and budgets.

Importing Event Planning Convenience to California

The successful launch and integration in Lithuania brought the Breezit platform over 1,500 event vendor and venue listings and between 30,000 and 45,000 monthly users. They then began to look at the US market and scouted several regions before establishing a subsidiary office in Los Angeles. Following integration into the Southern California region, Breezit now partners with over 805 local venues and vendors to service 15,000 monthly users and counting.

Part of the reasons for the platform’s growing popularity is its pricing policy. It is essentially free and only charges a moderate commission in the event of a successful booking.

‘Particularly in the US, over 70% couples can’t afford booking a professional wedding planner. They’re left to plan their big day on their own, starting with hunting down a venue. But the current market options aren’t much help. You’ve got old school listing sites that aren’t really focused on matching couples with the right vendors because they’re all about driving a ton of unqualified inquiries to the listed vendors. Google keeps showing the same old listing sites thanks to their strong SEO positions, and social media’s great for getting ideas but not much else. Breezit changes the game by putting price discovery upfront, making finding venues and vendors as easy as finding a hotel or an Airbnb. We save months of time,’ Mr Asakavičius explains.

Further Functional and Geographic Expansion

The co-founder shares that six months ago, Breezit in Lithuania evolved to become event-agnostic, catering to a variety of events beyond weddings. Now, Lithuanian users are embracing Breezit for organizing not only weddings but also corporate events and other private gatherings. Mr Asakavičius reports that big corporations – including major banks, retail giants, construction firms, tech startups, and even government institutions – have started using Breezit for their Christmas parties.

With the new investment at hand, Breezit’s expansion into Northern California is underway. Additionally, the platform will use the new funds to harness the power of AI to refine the process of discovering venues and vendors, as well as automate communication on behalf of partners. This approach is meant to improve the event planning experience dramatically for the customers and significantly reduces the administrative workload for the vendors. Breezit’s strategy involves leveraging existing AI tools and platforms to achieve these objectives.