Happied: Bringing new life to corporate events

Editor’s note: At the start of the year, we look at which young companies have caught our eye for hitting a milestone, bringing in funding or growing its revenue base. This company has made our list of our Startups to Watch for 2023. See them all here.

The idea for Happied came to co-founder April Johnson while she was counting down the hours until happy hour at her corporate job, wondering where to go.

She started the company, with co-founder Sharon Cao, so others wouldn’t spend hours agonizing over their after-work social gatherings. In 2019, the duo created a mobile app for happy hour lovers to easily search an extensive database of options.

But that came to an abrupt end in 2020, when the pandemic paused happy hours and bars and restaurants shut down. It forced the founders to pivot and focus on conducting virtual corporate events from New York to Austin, Texas, to Los Angeles, from cooking or mixology sessions with HelloFresh ingredient kits to family-friendly cruises to private events at snazzy locations around town. It was a blessing in disguise, said Johnson, who thinks Happied would still be hunting for customers if it had remained in just the happy hour business.

With the switch, the company went from $200,000 in 2020 revenue to more than $1 million in 2021. Last July, it raised $1.6 million from investors Virginia Venture Partners, as well as HearstLab and High Street Equity, which focus on startups led by women and Black founders, respectively.

In 2022, the startup joined Google’s third cohort of its Black Founders Fund 10-week accelerator program, receiving a $100,000 investment, along with support and mentorship from the mammoth tech brand.

With the pandemic shutdowns seemingly a thing of the past and employers looking to boost workplace culture in this new era of hybrid and remote work, Happied is working to cater its team-building events to more Fortune 500 companies like Google and Salesforce. In October, it launched its retreat and off-site planning platform, allowing the company to expand its footprint into Europe, Asia and parts of Africa.

The company plans to hire at least two more software engineers and five or six event planners.

“The big thing is building our capacity for more volume,” said Johnson, Happied’s CEO. “Everything that we do is designed to be incredibly inclusive so when you’re having your retreat, event, doing something for an affinity group or employee resource group, we bring a culturally relevant and aware approach to it in a way that similarly situated startups in the space don’t.”

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