Kerry Washington is increasing her angel funding portfolio, serving as lead investor within the pre-seed spherical of the wedding marketplace Cheersy.
Cheersy, which was based in 2024 by Amy Shack Egan, helps {couples} discover day-of-service wedding ceremony coordinators and has raised a complete of $550,000 from different buyers, together with Elizabeth Cutler, co-founder of Soul Cycle, and Jennifer Gilbert, founding father of Save the Date. Joanna Rosholm, the previous press secretary to First Girl Michelle Obama, and Christina Tosi, the founding father of Milk Bar, suggested the spherical.
Washington didn’t instantly reply to our request for remark.
Shack Egan mentioned she met Washington by way of the actor’s director of social influence. They each attended a cocktail party in Los Angeles the place Shack Egan struck up a dialog. By the top of the dinner, the director of social influence supplied an introduction to Washington as a potential angel investor. Washington has been making a reputation for herself as an angel investor alongside different Hollywood titans edging their manner into the world of startups.
She’s an investor within the social web site Spill, a Black-owned different to X. She’s additionally backed the consuming dysfunction treatment startup Equip and, in response to PitchBook, has lower checks for the charity fundraising platform Omaze and the healthcare firm Solv. She was additionally an investor in The Wing, the ladies’s social membership that shut down in 2022.
“The dinner was a number of days after I used to be alleged to fly residence, however I knew I wanted to be in that room of energy gamers,” Shack Egan informed TechCrunch. “I prolonged my journey and went to the dinner.”
From there, Shack Egan handled the remainder of the fundraising market, an expertise she referred to as “difficult.” “I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I mentioned sure to every thing. Jumped on a flight. Bought strung alongside, informed no, and put my foot in my mouth extra occasions than I can rely,” she mentioned.
That is Shack Egan’s second enterprise. She additionally based wedding ceremony planning enterprise Trendy Insurgent, launched in 2015. She based Cheersy as a result of Trendy Insurgent was getting so many requests for day-of wedding ceremony coordination, which means having somebody be sure that the marriage is operating easily the day it occurs.
“Day-of coordination is probably the most booked wedding ceremony planning service, and so I responded to requests for this service we didn’t supply with handpicked suggestions,” she mentioned, including that she then realized her providing suggestions may merely be constructed right into a market enterprise. The results of that was Cheersy, which, she says, has an analogous mannequin to Airbnb.
{Couples} search for vetted matches that match their funds, imaginative and prescient, and vibe, looking by date, worth, and specialty. Then the 2 events can e book a name and, if every thing is a match, the couple can e book the expertise.
Shack Egan thought of her small enterprise background a power however mentioned it was not the “best capsule to swallow” for buyers who had been searching for Huge Tech firms on her résumé.
“The fundraising journey could be so lonely and an actual knock in your psychological well being,” she continued.
She joined the Energy to Pitch program, which helped join her with extra individuals within the startup world. The corporate will use this recent capital to boost the options on the reserving platform and make some hires, comparable to a consumer expertise designer. Shack Egan additionally desires to up the advertising funds a bit and herald a group supervisor as the corporate seeks to increase into six new cities within the upcoming months. It’s at the moment supplied in New York Metropolis and Hudson Valley.
“I began on this business in 2015 as an occasion freelancer,” Shack Egan mentioned. “I do know the ache factors of this job personally. I like the concept we’re making the expertise of being somebody that works within the wedding ceremony business, in such a tricky — and infrequently, thankless — job extra supported and extra enjoyable.”
This piece was up to date to replicate who suggested the spherical.