Hatch

Overview

Hatch turned a manual follow-up service for a window-and-door dealer into an AI customer-service platform for home-service businesses. It began with a specific leak: expensive leads entered a CRM, salespeople moved on, and nobody consistently asked lost prospects why they had not bought. Hatch first supplied the persistence, then encoded it in campaigns, shared inboxes, CRM integrations, and AI agents across voice, SMS, and email.

Yelp completed its acquisition of Hatch on February 2, 2026. The final cash consideration was about $271.2 million, plus $30 million in retention packages for continuing employees.^[1] Hatch remains active as a wholly owned subsidiary and continues shipping under its own brand. This was a strong exit, not a shutdown.

The result came from sequence rather than sudden AI adoption. Hatch learned one costly workflow in home improvement, built distribution through trade relationships and software integrations, and accumulated years of conversation patterns. Generative AI improved a business that already knew what customers wanted automated. Yelp bought that workflow position, customer base, and subscription revenue as it expanded beyond advertising.

Image 1 / 2

Founding Story

Chris Bache and Bill Violante were sales operators before they were software founders. Both had worked at Comcast, and a friend running a local Pella window-and-door business asked them to investigate weak close rates. The dealer sold an expensive product but lacked a reliable process for following up with unsold leads and keeping customers informed between contract and installation.^[2]

The first intervention was a service. Bache and Violante used Salesforce data to contact nearly 100 lost prospects by text, email, and voice. Bache later recalled, “we got a 95% response rate.” The responses surfaced objections about price and experience; the dealer reportedly converted the information into $400,000 of additional sales in under 30 days.^[3]

That experiment revealed two products. One was rehash: persistent follow-up with people who had received an estimate but had not purchased. The other was customer care during the quiet interval between sale and installation. Contractors already had lead sources and CRMs, but messages lived on personal phones, reached the wrong employee, or never happened.

Hatch's current history dates the company to 2018, as does YC's profile.^[4][16] Earlier company writing says the service relationship began before the software platform, which explains references to a longer Pella partnership. In June 2019, Bache wrote that the team had spent the prior year building a platform for high-consideration businesses and announced a $2.5 million seed round led by NextView Ventures with Ludlow Ventures and YC.^[5]

Timeline

• Before 2018: Bache and Violante test manual follow-up for a Pella operator, turning lost-lead feedback into reported incremental sales.^[3]
• 2018: Hatch formalizes the software company and begins building messaging automation for high-consideration consumer businesses.^[5]
• Winter 2019: Hatch joins Y Combinator's W19 batch.^[4]
• June 2019: Hatch announces a $2.5 million seed round and reports early success in home improvement, automotive, furniture, and franchises.^[5]
• October 2020: The company expands from a texting tool into packaged workflows for speed-to-lead, sales follow-up, customer care, and reviews.^[6]
• July 2021: Hatch raises an $11 million follow-on round. NextView later said the company spent less than half of it before the exit.^[7]
• 2023–2025: Hatch adds generative-AI agents to an established messaging and workflow product, moving into autonomous qualification, booking, and customer care.
• January 21, 2026: Yelp announces an agreement to acquire Hatch for about $270 million in cash and discloses $25 million of November 2025 ARR, 70% year-over-year ARR growth, and modestly negative cash flow.^[8]
• February 2, 2026: The merger closes and Hatch becomes a wholly owned Yelp subsidiary.^[9]
• March 2026: Yelp reports a $34 million annual run-rate revenue figure for Hatch, while Hatch launches outbound Voice AI and continues operating under its own name.^[10]