Shreya Murthy is the cofounder and CEO of Partiful, the text-first party invitation app that became Gen Z's default way to gather. Launched in 2020 during pandemic lockdowns, the New York company has grown past millions of users, raised a $20M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, won Google's Best App of 2024, and landed Murthy on the 2025 TIME100 Next list. A Princeton politics grad and ex-Palantir operator, she left mission-fatigued tech jobs to build the social layer for offline life, betting that parties are not frivolous but infrastructure for community.
James Hirschfeld is the co-founder and CEO of Paperless Post, the New York company that turned the dread of sending an invitation into an act of design. He started it from a Harvard dorm in 2008 with his older sister Alexa, after his own 21st birthday party left him stuck between expensive paper and lifeless email. More than 175 million people have since sent or received a Paperless Post, across roughly 20 million events. He runs it as a design company that happens to live in a browser.
Joy is an all-in-one wedding planning platform that helps couples build custom wedding websites, manage registries with zero fees, coordinate guests, and stream virtual events. Founded in 2016 by three former Microsoft and Adobe engineers, Joy has grown to serve hundreds of thousands of couples worldwide with a free-to-use model, 600+ website templates, and a universal registry that pulls from any online retailer. Backed by General Catalyst and Sound Ventures, Joy has raised over $108M and is expanding beyond weddings into all major life milestones.
Zazzle is a Redwood City based online marketplace that lets anyone design and order custom products - from invitations and t-shirts to home decor and corporate gifts - manufactured on demand. Founded in 2005 by Robert, Bobby and Jeff Beaver, it pairs a creator community of independent designers with proprietary on-demand manufacturing.