The Venture Codex

Participated · Equity · Oct 2022

Rock Paper Coin (RPC) is a Portland, OR–based software-as-a-service company offering a suite of digital contracts, invoicing, and document-sharing tools for the wedding industry. The platform brings event planners, couples, and vendors into one system to manage contracts, pay invoices, and share documents, enabling event professionals to manage the backend of their businesses. Led by CEO Elizabeth Sheils and COO Nora Sheils, RPC positions itself as a financial solution to help businesses book more clients. The company reported revenue growth of 250% from 2021 to 2022 and plans to continue growing and scaling in 2023. To support expansion, RPC expects to hire additional employees and build on the team’s expertise in the wedding industry. The company aims to gain increased market share in the wedding services market, which is expected to reach $414.2 billion by 2030. Rock Paper Coin builds software to digitize contracts, invoices, payments and communications for wedding planners, couples and vendors, functioning as a “wedding binder” with budgeting tools. The platform supports three-way communication between the event planner, the couple and vendors and aims to automate the full wedding process. The company processed more than $1.8 million in transactions, serves nearly 1,000 businesses, employs 10 people, and is a two-year-old Portland, Ore.-based startup. During the pandemic thousands of weddings were postponed, causing transactions to lag even as new user sign-ups surged. Management says the company is freshly out of beta and expects the events industry to rebound by 2022. Rock Paper Coin plans to capture market share as weddings return to normal levels and to expand the product into non-wedding events and vendor services. Rock Paper Coin is a Portland, Ore.-based startup founded in 2018 that provides a digital project binder for weddings, combining contract management, payments, budgeting and collaboration. The platform supports three-way communication among event planners, couples and vendors, allowing planners (with permission) to review, approve contracts and make payments on behalf of clients. The product is currently offered as a free beta and the company employs an account manager who conducts in-person onboarding to help small and medium-sized vendors adopt the system. Founders Elizabeth and Nora Sheils bring 29 years of combined wedding and event experience and built the product after working at Bridal Bliss. The company has six employees and initially bootstrapped before taking external capital. Rock Paper Coin plans to begin offering subscriptions to event planners and vendors next year and to expand features into workflow management for planners.