Canary, Atlantico, and Big Bets led a R$7.5m round in Brazilian event planning platform Festalab.

(Contxto) Coronavirus (Covid-19) may be reducing the number of social gatherings. But party-planning platform FestaLab still has reasons to celebrate. The Brazilian startup recently raised R$7.5 million (US$1.5 million) in an investment round led by Canary, Big Bets, and Atlantico.

And there were plenty of other well-known angel investors that joined the party. There’s Renato Freitas (co-Founder of 99), André Narciso (CEO of Quero Educação), and Bruno Nardon (former President of Rappi in Brazil).

FestaLab will use the funds to expand.

Startup FestaLab wants to make party planning easier

Get togethers are always fun. But planning for them, not so much. It often means calling all your potential guests, sending the same message over and over through different mediums. To the point that it’s almost a relief when the party ends. So to make life easier for anyone that’s planning an event, FestaLab’s platform has some helpful tools.

Through its system, users create digital invitations online as well as build a website centered on the upcoming event. And depending on the occasion, FestaLab’s platform already hosts templates for users to work with. Weddings, birthdays, baby showers, there are various options to choose from.

To optimize the use of common social media platforms, FestaLab lets event planners send out invitations via WhatsApp, Facebook or email. Likewise, to perfect party planning it also has a guest list feature to know who’s RSVPed.

Erik Santana founded FestaLab in 2017. In 2019, it closed with 200,000 customers tapping into its event platform a month. Moreover, it took part in organizing 120,000 weddings.

Event planning when the pandemic passes

In light of party-pooper Covid-19, FestaLab too has had to readapt its product to social-distancing. Consequently, the startup made it so events can be held virtually through an integrated video call. This was possible via its partnership with video conference platform, Whereby.

Given the current situation, many gatherings have been postponed or cancelled altogether. As a result, it will be worth following FestaLab’s numbers at year’s end to see how people responded to this virtual party alternative as well as (the eventual return of) in-person ones.

In any case, technology that can bring people together despite distances will only continue to grow in importance. So I’d say this readaptation of its platform isn’t necessarily a quick fix, but rather a way to keep everyone close, pandemic or not.