Partiful, the New York-based event-planning app that is taking on older solutions like Evite, Eventbrite, and Facebook Events, was named Google's app of the year, the tech giant announced Monday as part of its "best apps and games of 2024" list. Other winners included AFK Journey for game of the year, plus those for best multidevice apps, hidden gems, and those focusing on particular platforms - be they watches or TVs, among others.

Co-founded in 2020 by former Palantir alumni Joy Tao and Shreya Murthy, Partiful recently picked up a $20 million Series A1 round in late 2022. Led by Andreessen Horowitz, the round resulted in bringing Partiful's total funding up to $27.34 million, valuing the company pre-money at $120 million, according to data from PitchBook. Participating alongside in the round were Abstract Ventures, Initialized Capital Management, ACME Capital, GV, New Enterprise Associates, and Benchmark.

Dubbed a favorite among Gen Z thanks to its younger user base, Partiful lets anyone design event pages and invite their friends from a link, often sent through text messages. Even though users don't necessarily need the app to RSVP to party invites, Partiful event organizers can utilize the app for managing RSVPs, sending updates, posting pictures, adding questionnaires, and taking advantage of other party-planning duties such as fundraise, if that is necessary, or count the spots. The application also allows the users to track all of their party and event invites in one location and sync that into their preferred calendar.

According to the company, its monthly active users had reached "millions" by the end of 2023.

The app is an interesting choice for becoming Google Play's "App of the Year," since a significant portion of its user base is on iOS.

According to analytics firm Appfigures, Partiful so far this year added 1,077,358 downloads, but 95% of those came from the Apple App Store. The app so far globally has reached a total of about 1.28 million downloads, while only 57,835 of those were on Android, the firm said.

Built with React Native, Partiful is most popular in the U.S., with the country accounting for 92 percent of its App Store downloads and 97 percent of the total on Google Play. Partiful saw its weekly downloads grow 4x this year, and Appfigures said it also experienced a recent spike on November 1 that propelled 71,000 downloads for the week.

Fantasy RPG AFK Journey as the Best Game of 2024 and Max as the best "multidevice" app, and Clash of Clans as the best multidevice game.

Other category winners are as follows:

Best for Fun: Mila by Camilla Lorentzen
Best for Personal Growth: UpStudy – Camera Math Solver
Best Everyday Essential: MacroFactor – Macro Tracker
Best Hidden Gem: Timeleft
Best for Watches: Baby Daybook – Newborn Tracker
Best for Big Screens: Infinite Painter
Best for Google TV: Peacock TV: Stream TV & Movies
Best for cars: PBS KIDS Video