NewCo produces city-style festivals that acquaint attendees with local businesses by staging office-hosted events organized around target cities. The 17-person startup monetizes through sponsorships, tours and ticketing, and media products including a daily newsletter. Last year it ran 11 events; this year it plans to operate in 15 cities, including new hubs such as London, Detroit, Toronto and Mexico City, and says it is talking with about 15 additional cities. Leadership plans to possibly add more cities while limiting the pace of expansion. The company is not yet profitable and is focusing on being lean and proving the model can become self-sustaining quickly without sacrificing investment. Management also says it intends to launch additional media products and a new kind of event in the near future. NewCo, founded by John Battelle and Brian Monahan, organizes city-based “festival” events that use participating companies' offices as venues to showcase startups and ideas. The format emphasizes curation and on-the-ground events across a target city rather than a single central venue. NewCo plans to expand its festival calendar (cities mentioned include New York, Austin, Silicon Valley, Amsterdam, and Istanbul) and to roll out initial media products such as videos from talks. The company intends to build a first-class technology platform to support its festival and media offerings. The seed funding will allow NewCo to expand staff and move from a passion project into a more concerted, staffed effort. The focus is on fostering companies and ideas that encourage positive change across industries.

Total raised

$6M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Mar 2016