Confetti: A Startup Case Study – Transforming Corporate Team Building

Confetti

Confetti is a dynamic startup that specializes in providing businesses of all sizes with curated corporate events, team-building activities, and professional development experiences. Founded in 2017, Confetti operates as a managed marketplace, connecting HR leaders, people operations professionals, event planners, and office administrators to vetted vendors and creative hosts for virtual, hybrid, and in-person team events. This New York-based company streamlines event planning, saving organizations both time and resources.

Founding Year: 2017

Headquarters: Boca Raton, Florida, United States

Industry: Virtual and Hybrid Corporate Events

Business Model

Confetti’s business model encompasses a B2B, two-sided approach, offering both products and services to its clients and managing a network of suppliers that deliver the actual experiences:

• Clients: HR Leaders, People Operations Professionals, Event Planners, and Office Administrators in businesses of all sizes, particularly those with remote and hybrid workforces. This includes companies ranging from fast-growing startups to large enterprises and Fortune 500s.
• Suppliers: Vetted vendors and hosts who provide team-building experiences. These include professional hosts, facilitators, chefs, mixologists, artists, wellness instructors, and other experts in their fields.

It’s Like: Airbnb Experiences but for corporate teams

Confetti offers a curated marketplace of experiences similar to Airbnb Experiences, but specifically designed for corporate team building, employee engagement, and professional development in virtual and hybrid work environments. It goes beyond a simple listing by taking responsibility for vendor vetting, logistics, and quality control, unlike Airbnb’s more open-ended platform approach.

With some differences, though:

• Target Audience: Airbnb Experiences caters to individual travelers and small groups seeking leisure activities, while Confetti focuses exclusively on businesses and organizations.
• Event Focus: Confetti’s experiences are specifically designed for corporate contexts, emphasizing team building, wellness, and learning & development, unlike the broader range of activities on Airbnb Experiences.
• Managed Service: Confetti provides end-to-end event management, including vendor vetting, logistics coordination, and a “Happiness Commitment,” distinguishing it from Airbnb Experiences’ more hands-off approach.
• Pricing and Packages: Confetti offers tailored pricing for corporate clients, including options like “Confetti CashBack” and “Plans” for recurring events or bundled services, unlike Airbnb’s individual booking model.

Challenges Addressed

• Difficulty in organizing engaging corporate events: Traditional event planning is complex, time-consuming, and often requires significant resources.
• Lack of fresh and unique event ideas: Finding new and engaging activities to keep employees interested can be challenging.
• Challenges of remote and hybrid teams: Maintaining connection, combating isolation, and fostering a strong company culture in distributed work environments are difficult.
• High cost and logistical burdens of offline events: Organizing offline events, especially for large companies, can be expensive and logistically complex.
• Need for regular team building and development: Companies require ongoing activities to integrate newcomers, develop employees, and maintain morale.

Solutions Provided

• Curated Marketplace of Virtual and Hybrid Experiences: Confetti offers a diverse catalog of over 400 team-building activities, wellness programs, and learning & development sessions.
• End-to-End Event Management: The platform simplifies planning with dedicated coordinators, instant price quotes, event briefings, and customized invites, handling logistics from start to finish.
• Vetted and High-Quality Vendors: Confetti ensures quality through a rigorous vendor vetting process, focusing on customer service, experience, and reliability.
• Flexible Pricing and Packages: Options like “Confetti CashBack” and “Plans” provide cost savings for recurring events or bundled services.
• Happiness Commitment: Confetti’s money-back guarantee reinforces its commitment to customer satisfaction.

Founding Story

• Reason for Starting: While working at ZocDoc, Lee Rubin was tasked with planning a team event. She found the process cumbersome—generating ideas, contacting vendors, coordinating logistics—which inspired her to “create a website to help you find and book activities for your team easily”.
• Founders: Confetti was founded in 2017 by Lee Rubin (CEO) and Eyal Hakim (CTO), initially focusing on in-person office events (e.g., puppy visits, in-office laser tag).
• Founders’ Background:
  • Lee Rubin brought a decade of B2B sales expertise and a passion for event culture.
  • Eyal Hakim joined after an exhaustive search—he became “the second half” of the founding team.
• Early Stage: Initially launched as a marketplace listing vendors, Confetti quickly realized the need for higher quality control. They transitioned into a managed marketplace, vetting vendors and managing execution end‑to‑end.
• With COVID-19 shutting down in-person gatherings, Confetti pivoted to virtual events within two weeks, rebuilding platforms, shipping kits, and launching experiences globally. Virtual events quickly became their growth engine, allowing worldwide scaling.
• First Results and Growth: Early enterprise customers included Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix. By focusing on customer happiness and quality, Confetti achieved 600% revenue growth as reported by Lee.
• Acquisitions: Confetti acquired Unlock in 2024 and Fun Team Events in 2025 to enhance its offerings.
• Technology and Innovation: Confetti’s user-friendly platform, diverse event catalog, and focus on customer service drive success. Its shift to a managed marketplace model ensures quality control.

Key Growth Milestones

• 2017: Confetti is founded
• 2020: Pandemic Pivot to Virtual Events. In response to COVID-19, Confetti rapidly pivoted to virtual team-building, rebuilding its platform within two weeks to support remote, shipped-kit, virtual experiences.
• February 21, 2024 – Acquisition of Unlock: Confetti acquires Unlock, a virtual team-building platform founded in 2020. This acquisition enhances Confetti’s virtual offerings and supports clients like Google, Amazon, and American Express.
• April 2024 – Raises $16M Series A: Confetti raises $16 million in Series A funding—led by Entrée Capital and IN Venture—to scale its end-to-end team-building platform for remote/hybrid teams, backed by a $12 M ARR and projected $15–20M by year-end.
• May 13, 2025 – Acquisition of Fun Team Events: Confetti acquires Fun Team Events, a provider of live-hosted virtual experiences since 2019. This expands Confetti’s catalog to over 400 experiences and enriches its engagement tools for remote and hybrid teams.

Market & Competition

Target Market

Primary Market:

• Remote, Hybrid & In‑Office Teams: Focused on corporate clients—HR managers, People Ops, event planners, office admins—who need curated team‑building, engagement, and professional development events.
• Scale & Reach: Serves over 8,000 companies, including tech giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, and around 30% of Fortune 500 organizations.

Market Growth:

• Overall Team-Building Market: Globally valued at about $3.9 billion in 2023, projected to grow to $4.7 billion in 2024 and reach $22.9 billion by 2032, representing a 21.7% CAGR.
• Corporate Team-Building Subsegment: Estimated at $2.5 billion in 2024, with an expected rise to $5.1 billion by 2033 (approx. 9% CAGR).

 Growth Trends:

• Hybrid Teams: Sustained need for flexible engagement solutions that travel across remote and office workflows.
• Live-Host Virtual Experiences: High demand for expert-led, engaging virtual sessions—a space Confetti and acquired brands like Unlock and Fun Team Events are investing heavily.
• Integrated Event-as-a-Service: Companies are securing credits/subscriptions for recurring events versus one-offs, increasing LTV.
• B2B Partnerships: Collaborations with HR platforms, corporate wellbeing vendors, and enterprise software ecosystems to deepen market penetration.

Competitive Landscape

Confetti faces competition in a fragmented market of virtual team-building and corporate event providers.

Main rivals include:

• Virtual Xperiences: Specializes in luxury virtual events.
• Marco
• Revive
• The Ubuntu Space
• Helios
• Breakout Experiences
• Visit.org
• Vispa
• Thriver
• CultureBoot
• Ludesi

Marketing & Sales

Website & Socials

• Confetti’s website (withconfetti.com) attracts approximately 57,794 monthly visits.
• Most traffic arrives via direct access, organic search, and paid search, with smaller shares from referrals, social media (primarily LinkedIn), and ads.
• Top visiting countries include the US, Canada, Germany, the UK, and India.

Media Coverage

• PR Underground (Confetti newsroom): Announced the acquisition of Fun Team Events on May 13, 2025, framing it as a strategic expansion to add live-hosted virtual experiences to Confetti’s catalog of 400+ events.
• FinSMEs: Covered the April 2024 Series A funding, again citing the $16M raise led by Entrée Capital and IN Venture, and emphasizing the platform’s mission to revolutionize remote work culture.
• StartupHub.ai: Reported on Confetti’s Series A, affirming both the $16M investment and the company’s $12M revenue run rate.
• LinkedIn: Confetti’s official LinkedIn post (and CEO Lee Rubin’s personal announcement) confirmed the Unlock acquisition and shared excitement about scaling Confetti’s remote-work event reach.

Marketing Strategies

• Target Audience: HR leaders, event planners, office administrators, and team managers within companies of all sizes, especially those with remote/hybrid workforces. Confetti caters to an audience often aged 25–64, with a roughly 39.2% male and 60.8% female split.
• Customer Acquisition:
  • Product-Led Growth: A self-service booking platform emphasizes simplicity (“book in just a few clicks”) and value, leading to organic adoption.
  • “Corporate-consumer-facing” Model: Any employee with a corporate card/book access can instantly book, allowing bottom-up traction within organizations.
  • Content Marketing & SEO: Confetti produces blogs, guides, case studies, and event planning webinars (e.g., “What’s the Deal with Event Marketing?”) to attract organic traffic and establish brand authority.
  • Direct Sales: A dedicated enterprise sales team targets mid-to-large organizations with tailored outreach and demos.
  • Paid Advertising: Runs targeted campaigns on LinkedIn and industry-specific platforms to reach HR professionals and event planners (based on job postings and platform promotion patterns).
  • Partnerships: Collaborates with employee experience providers such as Circles Group to embed Confetti within broader corporate wellness programs.
  • Referrals & Word-of-Mouth: High customer satisfaction (e.g., “happiness commitment”) generates strong referrals and organic growth through positive experiences.
  • Public Relations: Press coverage around funding, acquisitions, and feature rollouts helps maintain Confetti’s visibility in HR & tech circles.
• Supplier Acquisition: Rigorous vetting process focusing on customer service, quality, and experience. Potential vendors undergo interviews, reviews, and testimonial checks.

Product & Innovation

Managed Marketplace for Corporate Events

Confetti’s core innovation lies in its curated, managed approach to corporate events. Unlike an open platform, Confetti ensures vendor quality and handles logistics, providing a higher level of service and reliability.

Corporate-Consumer Facing Model

By allowing individual employees with corporate credit cards to directly book events, Confetti democratizes access and encourages grassroots adoption within organizations.

Focus on Remote and Hybrid Teams

Confetti specializes in virtual and hybrid experiences, a strategic alignment with the fast-growing trend of distributed workplaces.

Emphasis on Wellness and L&D

In addition to traditional team building, Confetti’s activity catalog addresses modern corporate priorities like wellness, and learning & development.

End-to-End Event Management with Transparent Pricing

Confetti simplifies event planning with instant quotes, dedicated support, and a user-friendly platform, addressing the complexities of corporate event organization.

Financials & Metrics

Revenue Sources

• Per-Event & Per-Participant Fees: Confetti charges event-level fees that vary by format and complexity. For example, virtual experiences like mixology or cooking are priced per person, with prices visible upfront, such as $11–$118 per participant, depending on the activity tier.
• Package Credits & Bundles: Offers plans and Confetti CashBack bonus credits on bundled budgets, encouraging pre-purchases. Credits apply toward future events, adding loyalty benefits.
• Add-On & Value-Added Services: Revenue is also generated through premium options such as custom branding, swags, customized kits, third-party integrations, international shipping, platform branding, enhanced analytics, and premium support.

Metrics

• Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR): $12 million as of March 2024, projected to reach $15–$20 million by end of 2024.
• Funding and Investments: $16 million Series A in March 2024, co-led by Entrée Capital and IN Venture. Pitchbook cites total funding of $39.6 million.
• Employee Count: Approximately 51 to 200 employees as of June 2025.

Structure & Culture

Structure

Confetti operates with a distributed team across five continents, aligning with the company’s emphasis on remote and virtual collaboration.

Key leadership positions include:

• Lee Rubin: Founder and CEO.
• Eyal Hakim: Co-Founder and CTO.

Other key roles:

• Head of Product Design
• Head of Privacy & Legal
• Head of Customer Service
• VP of Finance
• VP of Marketing

Company Values

Confetti’s culture is guided by:

• Respect: Inclusive and considerate.
• Empathy: Recognizing the human element in business.
• Honesty: Maintaining transparency and over-delivering on promises.
• Growth: Emphasizes open-mindedness, level-headedness, and flexibility.
• Impact: Aims for real value and positive change.
• Balance: Focuses on sustainable growth and work-life integration.
• Fun: Actively incorporates fun into the work environment.

The company emphasizes quality, craftsmanship, and a human-centric approach. They prioritize a “marathon, not a sprint” philosophy, focusing on long-term vision.

Impact & Success

Customer Feedback

• Easy booking & fast support: The platform offers a polished, user-friendly interface that makes event scheduling simple, with prompt customer service to match.
• Engaging, high-quality hosts & experiences: Clients rave:
  “The hosts are always so fun and festive, keep our team engaged…” — Hallie G., Affiliate Marketer.  
  “Activities are fun and engaging and the hosts makes participation easy and enjoyable!” — Capterra review.
• Major time-saver for planners: Planners appreciate the handoff from logistics to execution.
   “I barely have to do anything! Just pick the activity and pay an invoice. It really is that simple.” — Jourdin H., Administrative Assistant.
• Cohesion for remote and hybrid teams: Events help distributed teams connect.
   “Confetti has become an essential tool for our remote team’s happiness and connectivity…” — Head of Operations, Parabol.
• Excellent service with fair pricing: Emily R., EA at HubSpot, reports:
   “Confetti is always my go-to for virtual team events. They make everything SO easy and are extremely responsive.” Similarly, Kelly B. from CGI notes the balance of variety, service, and price.

Success Stories

• Lemonade: 
  • Challenge: Supporting a growing hybrid workforce post-pandemic.
  • Solution: Semi-monthly onboarding and mixers delivered via Confetti.
  • Outcome:  “It’s always been effortless with Confetti… Confetti just makes everything so easy.” — Amber, Ops at Lemonade.
    Cross-functional engagement, ease of planning, and sustained use followed deployment.
• Goodway Group:
  • Challenge: Hosting a hybrid all-company summit with balanced in-person and virtual participation.
  • Outcome: “Confetti gave us exactly what we needed. All‑in‑all, it was an amazing experience.” — Maria, Summit Planner.
• FormAssembly:
  • Challenge: Post-pandemic disconnection and inefficient planning.
  • Outcome: “Confetti is going to solve all of our problems.” — Hayley, Field Marketing Manager.

Growth & Future

Challenges and Risks

• Market Fragmentation and Competition: A crowded virtual team-building landscape necessitates differentiation.
• Scaling Operations and Maintaining Quality: Rapid expansion requires consistent event quality and customer service.
• Integration of Acquisitions: Smoothly blending acquired offerings from Unlock and Fun Team Events is vital.
• Evolving Work Models: Confetti must adapt to changing remote/hybrid/in-office trends.
• Maintaining Innovation: Remaining fresh and engaging in an ever-evolving marketplace.

Future Plans

• Expand Operations and Business Reach: Plans to leverage Series A funding to scale both the platform and team.
• Democratize Team Building: Aim to make these activities accessible for all companies.
• Continuous Innovation: Adapting to workforce needs with new features and experience offerings.

Key Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Embrace the “Managed Marketplace” Model: Confetti’s approach shows how owning the entire experience — from vetting to logistics — builds trust and justifies premium pricing.
• Capitalize on Shifting Paradigms: Their explosive growth came by recognizing remote work trends. Stay alert to big market changes and leverage them rather than resist.
• Solve Real Pain Points, Deeply: Confetti tackles time-consuming event planning, fresh activity ideas, and remote-team challenges. Focus on problems that significantly impact your target market.
• Prioritize Customer Happiness (and Guarantee It): Their “Happiness Commitment” fosters loyalty and provides reassurance, turning customers into vocal advocates.
• Empower Bottom-Up Adoption: Allowing individual employees to make bookings accelerates organic growth within organizations, bypassing traditional top-down approval barriers.
• Iterate and Adapt: Confetti pivoted from offline to online events during the pandemic. Stay flexible and adjust strategies based on market feedback.
• Don’t Reinvent the Wheel, Reimagine It: By positioning virtual events specifically for corporate contexts, Confetti found a niche and improved upon an existing concept.