Today, artificial intelligence is used to automate the tedious parts of planning corporate activities. It looks for venues that meet the user’s specifications, negotiates back and forth, and gathers options.
Founded in 2023 by sisters CEO Anna Sun and COO Amy Yan, Todays has been used to book events worth more than $4 million.
Now it is raising money to fund its expansion.
Y Combinator invested $500,000 in the company last year. This was followed by 40 separate investments over a period of time, most recently reaching $2 million.
The funding will be used to hire engineers to accelerate the development of its artificial intelligence capabilities.
Today not only helps with bookings but also helps companies with financial decisions. “Let’s say you have a company spread across 20 different countries. They’re trying to find offsite locations. In 10 seconds, we’ll tell them how much it will cost to fly team members to different locations, so their decision-making will factor in flying as well. factor.
Today’s founders remember calling the ice cream truck on the weekends
After graduating from MIT, Justin Sun came up with the idea of starting a company. Her older sister, Yan, worked at Google after graduating from Johns Hopkins University. Both men served as class presidents at their respective universities and organized many large-scale events.
Sun recalls weekends when he “called ice cream trucks and aquariums to get quotes,” or had to pick up 2,000 McDonald’s McChickens in person because there was no way to arrange bulk delivery.
She set out to create a company that would simplify this process. The company won the “Best Site Procurement Solution” award at the 2024 Skift Meetings Awards.
Planners pay a 5% commission to use the platform, and venue fees range from 7-10%.
“As an IATA-certified travel agency, we are able to earn commissions when we bring business to venues, which helps simplify the booking process for our customers,” Sun said.
For companies with higher booking volumes, it offers a subscription model. In this case, customers pay an annual fee equivalent to an acquisition fee of approximately 3%, which eliminates any additional fees for bookings.
The company is developing free tools to support sales managers and planners and will launch them soon.
