# Chris Bache

> Chris Bache is the co-founder and chief executive of Hatch, an AI customer-communication company born from an experiment with neglected home-improvement leads. The test drew responses from 95 of roughly 100 prospects and helped recover $400,000 in sales in under a month. Bache and co-founder Bill Violante turned that lesson into a multichannel platform, joined Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch, raised an $11 million Series A in 2021, and grew Hatch to about $25 million in annual recurring revenue before Yelp acquired it in February 2026.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Hatch
- **Organizations:** Hatch, Yelp, Y Combinator, Conexus for Healthy Vision, Comcast
- **Education:** Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Management/Strategy, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- **Known for:** Co-founded Hatch and led it from a manual lead-reengagement service to a multichannel AI communication platform., Entered Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch with Hatch., Raised an approximately $11 million Series A in 2021.

## Career timeline

- **Before 2016** — Worked in sales, including at Comcast, before moving into entrepreneurship.
- **2015** — Began serving as marketing chairman for Conexus for Healthy Vision, according to his LinkedIn profile.
- **2016** — Co-founded Hatch with Bill Violante, initially operating as a service that re-engaged old sales leads.
- **2018** — Published the founders' account of turning Hatch's manual communication workflow into a software product.
- **2019** — Hatch joined Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch and raised seed financing.
- **2020** — Led Hatch beyond its original texting focus toward integrated text, email, voice, lead-source, and chatbot workflows.
- **2021** — Hatch raised an approximately $11 million Series A.
- **2024** — Hatch released a broader generation of AI agents with voice calls, live handoffs, function calling, integrations, and prompt controls.
- **2026-02** — Yelp completed its acquisition of Hatch after agreeing to approximately $270 million in cash plus $30 million in employee-retention consideration.
- **2026-09** — Hatch and Yelp deployed OpenAI's GPT-Live-1 for service-business and restaurant voice interactions.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Hatch and led it from a manual lead-reengagement service to a multichannel AI communication platform.
- Entered Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch with Hatch.
- Raised an approximately $11 million Series A in 2021.
- Led Hatch to approximately $25 million in annual recurring revenue by November 2025, representing 70% year-over-year ARR growth reported by Yelp.
- Built Hatch through its February 2026 acquisition by Yelp, announced at approximately $270 million in cash plus $30 million in employee-retention consideration.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Hatch and Yelp announced deployment of OpenAI's GPT-Live-1 voice model, enabling more natural interruptions, overlapping speech, tone awareness, and multilingual conversations.
- **2026-04** — Hatch launched outbound Voice AI inside the same system used for inbound calls, SMS, and email.
- **2026-02** — Yelp completed its acquisition of Hatch and described the platform as central to its services lead-management strategy.
- **2026-01** — Yelp announced the acquisition agreement; Bache said the partnership would let Hatch scale faster.

## Links

- Website: https://www.usehatchapp.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-bache-2bb13023
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNjPVewrkCQ

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/chris-bache
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-27