Posh raises $22M to become TikTok for small events

Platforms like TikTok and Spotify have experimented with events on their platforms. But rather than concentrating on concerts and large gatherings, event startup Posh is focusing on intimate gatherings of up to a few hundred people where you might know a friend, a friend of a friend, and a person you met at some party.

The company said today that it has raised $22 million in Series A funding led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from FirstMark Capital, Companyon Ventures and Epic Ventures. The company has raised a total of $31 million in capital to date from investors like Companyon Ventures, Epic Ventures, Day One Ventures, and Pareto Holdings.

With this capital, the startup aims to expand its team from 26 to 40 in product and go-to-market areas. Plus, it wants to update its app with better suggestions for relevant events.

The company has 2 million registered users and $95 million of lifetime experiences booked through its tools.

Hatim Khety, a partner at Goodwater Capital, said that the firm decided to invest in the company as it believes that the next big social platform will bring people together in person.

“Consumers can also use Posh to discover the best events, experience connection and belonging, and eventually grow their own social communities on the platform,” Khety said over email.

Scaling the consumer platform

While the company started in 2020 with a SaaS offering for events organizers to host events on POSH’s website, it now plans to concentrate on its own app, which was opened up to consumers last October. The app works like TikTok for events where you scroll vertically to find an event that you are interested in. Posh is available on iOS and Android both.

Co-founders Avante Price and Eli Taylor-Lemire told TechCrunch that in January the marketplace app orders counted for 6% of ticket orders in January, which jumped to 12% in June. Posh is aiming to get 25% marketshare of all tickets sold directly from its app by the end of the year.

Until now, Posh’s app showed events near you and trending events. This week, the company launched a feature to let users import their contact books to see which of their friends are on the platform.

In the next few months the company has plans to introduce a For You feed, which relies on the signals like your direct or second connections as well as the types of events you have attended.

“Posh is a platform where who’s going is what matters most. If you are going to a 500 people event where you know five to ten people, you want to hang out with them but also want to spend time with people that are similar,” Price said.

Diversifying events

The co-founders told TechCrunch that the app hosts roughly 5,000 events per month. A lot of them are focused on nightlife or social activity friends, but the company wants to get into spaces like fitness, art, and food.

Additionally, Posh has been trying to build a community for event organizers by hosting events for them, providing tutorials about the app and other parts of hosting such as finding a venue or booking a photographer. The company wants to help creators like podcasters engage their top audience with in-person events. Plus, it also want brands to engage with community members with recurring, small scale events.

The opportunity and challenges of tackling the event space

The company charges no fee to organizers, but takes a 10% + $0.99 fee from people who book tickets. While the startup has had profitable months, it is not profitable overall and is focusing on growth at the moment.

The founders said that the platform clocks roughly 350,000 bookings for 300,000 people every month. So a lot of people are still one-off users. But personalization will help them convert them into repeat users.

The challenge for the startup is to bring a larger number of events in different genres to the platform. Currently, the business is stronger in the latter half on the year, and Posh wants to even things out in the first half of the year.

“When you are back from a vacation in your city, you want to go out and socialize with people but not always at a club. So it is our job to provide more supply of events. We think the consumer demand is flat, but supply of events is not always there, and that’s where we can help,” the founders said.

Drake Rehfeld, Principal at Day One Ventures, told TechCrunch over email that Posh’s uniqueness lies in helping people find something “underground and distinct.” Plus, Price and Taylor-Lemire’s past experience in the events space can help the startup grow faster.

This story originally misstated Android app’s status based on the communication from the startup