HopSkip

Overview

HopSkip is a Philadelphia-based software company focused on venue sourcing for meetings, conferences, and business events. Its platform supports the workflow from collecting planner requirements and searching hotels through issuing RFPs, comparing proposals, presenting options, and managing contracting.

The company positions itself as a subscription-based alternative to commission-based venue-sourcing models. It serves professional planners, hotels, and destination-management organizations, and states that its database includes more than 150,000 hotels worldwide. The platform is notable for consolidating RFP management, proposal comparison, stakeholder presentation, and sourcing analytics in one system.

History

HopSkip was founded in 2019 by Sean Whalin, Greg Leizerowicz, and Luke Whalin. The company developed a software platform to streamline hotel and venue sourcing, room-block planning, proposal comparison, and contracting for meetings and events. In June 2024, it announced a $3 million seed funding round. No acquisition, renaming, or parent-company relationship was identified.

Product Lines

Manufacturing

HopSkip is a software company and does not manufacture physical products. Its platform is developed and operated in the United States, with a hotel and venue database covering more than 150,000 properties worldwide.

Notable Products

• Briefs & RFPs - Structured brief and RFP workflow for collecting event requirements and sending requests to matching hotels.
• Hotel Discovery & Qualification - Search and filtering tools for identifying hotels based on dates, budgets, room blocks, meeting space, concessions, and other requirements.
• Proposal Comparison - Tools for reviewing hotel proposals side by side, including cost and requirement comparisons.
• Decision Deck - Shareable proposal summary used by planners and stakeholders to evaluate venue options.
• Hotel Network - Hotel-facing platform for receiving qualified planner RFPs and tracking proposal activity and competitive insights.
• DMO Event Management - Destination-management tools for monitoring planner searches, venue consideration, RFP activity, and contracted business.

Reputation

HopSkip is presented by industry and company profiles as a specialized event-technology platform addressing the manual, email-heavy hotel-sourcing process. Its reported strengths include structured RFPs, proposal comparison, ownership of planner data, and a focus on qualified opportunities rather than commission-based leads. Publicly available independent reviews and detailed customer feedback appear limited, so broader professional sentiment, pricing transparency, and long-term performance are not well established.