Shreya Murthy

If you’ve ever cried over planning your own birthday... this app was built for you.

When Shreya Murthy quit her job in 2020 to launch a party-planning startup, even her friends were skeptical.

“Parties? In a pandemic?” they asked.

But Shreya wasn’t betting on parties. She was betting on people.

“After lockdown we didn’t just want to go out, we needed to connect.”

So she built Partiful.

A playful, emoji-filled invite platform that spoke Gen Z’s language: casual, chaotic, full of in-jokes and Shrek memes.

No emails. No spreadsheets. Just one link, and you’re in the loop.

Early investors didn’t get it.

“Very few people took us seriously. It was two women with a party idea.’”

One of those women was Joy Tao, her cofounder.

A fellow Palantir alum.

A former Meta engineer.

And an “avid party planner” who was sick of designing software to keep people glued to their screens.

“I wanted to build something that brought people offline. Something real.”

Turns out, millions agreed.

By 2023, Partiful was exploding on college campuses and postgrad group chats.

It hit millions of users.

In 2024, it won Google’s “Best App of the Year.”

And in 2025, it averaged 500,000 monthly users. Up 400% year over year.

Then Apple launched Apple Invites.

A paid clone of Partiful.

Shreya didn’t panic. She posted a joke.

“Partiful will not make money. There is no pitch at scale. Investors gave us money to help you party and that is what we’re here to do.”

People stayed. Because the product worked. And because the vibe was unmistakable.

As one user put it: “Getting invited to a party not on Partiful? Honestly feels like getting ghosted by the group chat.”

But as the app gained traction, so did the scrutiny.

Critics pointed to Shreya and Joy’s Palantir past.

A company known for government surveillance and data mining.

“I didn’t agree with a lot of the work Palantir did. And I never worked on those government contracts. I joined to solve hard problems not to enable harm.”

Still, the questions lingered.

And Shreya didn’t dodge them.

“I get why people care. But we left for good reasons. And we’re building something completely different. Something joyful. Something human.”

Today, Partiful is still free. Still viral. Still weird in the best way.

It’s where people go to plan birthday dinners, bachelorette weekends, rooftop hangs.

And maybe meet someone new.

“We want to make it easier to get to know friends-of-friends. Because that’s how the best parties and friendships start.”