Richmond’s OccasionGenius, a self-described “personalized event discovery technology company,” was recently awarded a $75,000 grant from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp.’s Commonwealth Commercialization Fund.
The award, which requires a company match, will primarily be devoted to rebuilding the company’s technological infrastructure so it can accommodate a massive increase in post-pandemic events. With travel spending on the rise, infrastructure upgrades are a mission-critical task for OccassionGenius, CEO and co-founder Nate Marcus said.
Given the live-event-centered nature of its core business model, OccasionGenius’ resilience through the pandemic was no small feat. With no live events and therefore no clients during the early stretch of the Covid-19 outbreak, OccassionGenius had to put several contracts on hold. But that time was still put to good use.
“It’s a very unique opportunity to just focus on your product,” Marcus said.
So, the team at OccasionGenius, with the aid of more than $3 million in funding raised to date, doubled down on its technology through technical improvements to the platform’s application programming interface and a focus on reducing the cost of goods sold.
Having reached the proverbial light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, OccasionGenius expects the upgrades to pay dividends, as the company works to meet the record-high travel demand needs of its clients. Its customers range from hotels and airlines to real estate brokers and dating apps.
In addition to its infrastructure upgrades, OccasionGenius spent the past few years developing a new product called “global travel worthy dataset.”
Clients, such as hotels, “need to know what events are happening six to eight to 12 months out because that’s when people are booking their travel,” Marcus said. These “travel worthy events” help OccasionGenius generate a dataset the company says is the first of its kind. For clients, the dataset is full of the of events like festivals and musical performances, which drive travel and, critically, inspire trip extensions.
Since the pandemic began, the company’s revenues have been growing at over 200% year-over-year, according to Marcus. He declined to give concrete figures.
The post-pandemic order of things has created a confluence of events that Marcus says have aligned well for OccasionGenius. Much of the company’s growth is being driven by millennial and Gen Z travelers who, according to consumer data, are much more inclined than older cohorts to travel specifically for an event or to extend their travel because of an event. And with more people working remotely, would-be travelers have greater flexibility to build trips into their day-to-day lives. There is also a heightened interest in authenticity in travel, Marcus said, with more people looking to travel like a local and have authentic local experiences.
While growth for OccasionGenius continues, Marcus’ biggest concerns are for the company to avoid becoming a “victim of its own success,” he said. As the company takes on new clients, and the requisite processing, enhancement and curation of a lot more events, Marcus said he is laser-focused on preventing system integrity issues and guarding against technical vulnerabilities.
