The Main Event: POSH Raises $22M Series A from FirstMark and Goodwater to become Shopify for Events

We are thrilled to announce FirstMark’s investment in the $22 million Series A round in POSH, the pioneering Peer-to-Peer Event Marketplace that’s redefining how we create, manage, and discover live events. 

We’re proud to partner with Co-Founders Avante Price and Eli Taylor-Lemire, who were classmates at NYU. Avante learned to DJ from his father at a young age, and Eli founded a freelance photo-video agency for fashion magazines and musicians, and they connected over their shared passion for music, photography, and events. They grew frustrated with existing event management products as fans and creators, which led them to build the first version of POSH for themselves from their dorm room.

FirstMark is proud to be an investor in iconic marketplaces like Pinterest, Airbnb, Shopify, StubHub, DraftKings, Upwork, and Discord. We’ve been honored to work alongside the visionary founders of these companies with network effects, organic growth, high retention, and marketplace liquidity that enables users to monetize underutilized assets. We see the same virtuous flywheel in POSH, to the tune of 2+ million users, $90+ million in processed ticket sales, and a 10x YoY increase in successful matches between Attendees and relevant events.

The Everything Store for Events: How POSH Works

POSH is an all-in-one, self-serve platform that connects Organizers and Attendees:

1. Organizers (Supply): POSH offers “Business in a Box” software for Prosumer Organizers, who range from Individuals (like yoga teachers, designers, and real estate agents) to Professionals (Beli, New Yorkers comedy), with features like 1-click checkout, white-labeled event pages, unlimited communication tools, custom payment plans, CRM capabilities, and financing working capital.
2. Attendees (Demand): POSH Organizers host events from 10-person birthdays to 10,000+ person festivals. Attendees enjoy a modern, social experience with features like Attendee chat, seamless payments, and QR code check-ins. Their innovative kickback product (which compensates Attendees for bringing additional Attendees) incentivizes referrals, thereby boosting organic growth.

Why Now? Connection, Community, and the Loneliness Epidemic are Megatrends

As one of the business leaders at Airbnb during the pandemic and the rise of remote work, we saw the impact of isolation across countries and cities globally. Our Co-Founder Brian Chesky remarked that “we’re probably living in the loneliest time in human history, we need to rebuild physical community…and be physically together.” We had hired Dr. Vivek Murthy, former US Surgeon General, who asked “Brian, do you know what the #1 killer in America is? It’s not heart disease, or cancer. The #1 killer in America is loneliness.

”Human beings are inherently social, so it’s no coincidence that as technology becomes increasingly powerful, even Sam Altman has highlighted, there will be a huge market and premium on “human, in-person, fantastic experiences”. In a world of evolving technology in the virtual world, what will never change is the power of person-to-person proximity in the physical world. As we place an ever-increasing premium on human connection, our most important decisions will become what we do with our time, and who we do it with.

POSH was started during the pandemic to help people form these stronger IRL connections by discovering new events. It’s no coincidence that POSH first took off in NYC, one of the most densely populated major cities in the world and a unique place where the surface area of serendipity and magic of in-person experiences is maximized. 1 in 10 college students has booked a POSH Event in NYC, and that local network effect has already spread globally to 6 continents, with thousands of Attendees in the EU, Africa, and Guam. 

Why We’re Excited: Global Network Effects between New Organizers and Attendee Discovery, and Expanding the Event Economy

FirstMark has partnered with iconic marketplaces like Pinterest, Airbnb, Upwork, and Shopify, who are building Network Effects to strengthen human connections  — whether that means connecting Guests to Hosts, Merchants to Shoppers, or now Organizers to Attendees with POSH. Connections like this are powerful because they compound value to existing users as more new users join. 

For Airbnb, making it easier to Host led to more Guests booking, which attracted more Hosts.

For Shopify, making it easier for Merchants to start a business led to more online stores, which led to a boom in ecommerce.

For POSH, making it easier for Organizers to create events has led to more Attendees, which in turn is creating more Organizers,

At FirstMark, we often look for this “symmetric” marketplace effect that we see in POSH, where 1 in 2 Organizers (supply) started as Attendees (demand), and became Organizers thanks to the simplicity and power of the platform. 

Net New Supply of “Eventrapreneurs”: POSH’s event software makes it so easy for Organizers to run an event like a business from end-to-end, that it’s led to a growing community of “Eventrapreneurs”. 

FirstMark has long invested in the freelance and gig economy since Upwork, who reports that 40% of the US workforce participated in freelance work in 2022. The IRS reports that the number of platform gig workers on Uber, Airbnb, and DoorDash grew 5x from 1M to 5M in 2021.

These megatrends continue to grow as products like POSH expand the gig economy  for Organizers and freelancers, who can now supplement their full-time jobs with income from the events ecosystem.

Demand Discovery: More POSH events enable Attendees to discover a higher quantity of quality events in their area that they can’t find anywhere else, as we’ve seen with 10x YoY growth in successful matches. More density of events leads to more Attendees which incentivizes new Organizers to host more events, which leads to even more attendance and engagement, and creates a  virtuous cycle that compounds.

This flywheel is amplified by POSH’s Social Guest List functionality. Anyone who’s attending an event wants to know about the events going on in their city, and who else is going, so POSH has built a new social network graph based on Attendee profiles and friends’ event interests. Whether you’re into fitness, art, sports, concerts, or obscure poetry readings in Brooklyn, you can follow friends or make new ones with similar interests and attend events together. 

The Events Horizon

The Global Live Events Market is projected to grow from $60B in 2023 to as high as  $750B by 2030. POSH is growing that pie by empowering the next million Promoters, Event Planners, Photographers, Performing Artists, DJs, and event creatives to create more events for Attendees to discover and support. 

POSH is redefining and expanding the Event Economy, and we encourage you to discover new events near you, organize your own Event, or join the team! Avante and Eli  have started a movement to create connection and community through events, and we’re thrilled to be part of this exciting journey at FirstMark.