urbane.ventures – urbane.ventures

Live Event and Entertainment-focused Investment Fund

Overview

Urbane Venture Fund (UVF) is a live event and entertainment-focused micro-investment fund that supports event curators and organizers across the United States. The fund is innovative and first-of-its-kind as it makes investments, equity or debt, into single events (or “projects”) by trusted event curators. It’s a revenue-based financing model for event curators that does not seek long-term equity ownership in the event production company. We only invest in, and seek returns from, individual projects. Our preferred investment sweet spots are live events & hospitality concepts, concerts, festivals, or traveling event series with 600+ attendees.

For every 5 deals we see, we invest in 1 on average. Each year, we are estimated to invest in 20 total projects.

Our Value

Capital

Venues

Talent

Brands & Sponsors

A first-of-its-kind investment fund for event curators

Our Investments

Investments since 2023

$10-150K

Check Size

USA

Geography

Apply

We aim to invest in projects that have an investment need of at least $10,000+, event organizers have the willingness to contribute their own cash into the project, and they have strong background and experience in the space. We are event agnostic, meaning that we are open to investments in all different event types. We prefer to start our working relationship with a smaller investment size and grow over time as we work together. We don’t invest in projects by first-time event curators, projects smaller than 400 attendees, projects less than 40 days out, cryptocurrency-related projects, or cannabis-related projects.

See our investment criteria and process here, including FAQs.

Our Investment Committee

We are a collective of business executives and investment professionals with backgrounds as former event curators. As mentors and champions, we are committed to supporting remarkable trustworthy event curators. Having produced events that generated over $30M in combined GMV, we bring a wealth of experience to the table.

Years of Combined Event Production Experience

1 +

Events Produced

Years of Event Investing

Fellowship

UVF Fellowship Program is as an unique four-month work and learning experience. Fellows gain valuable hands-on work and leadership experience at the intersection of entertainment, entrepreneurship, and finance. To apply, visit the link below.

Investors

Our investment thesis is centered around the belief that the live events and entertainment industry will witness unprecedented consumerism and growth in the 2020’s, reminiscent of the “Roaring Twenties” of a century ago. There are notable social, cultural and macro-economic similarities between the two periods. Over the past decade, we have observed sector consolidation, which gradually drove up costs. Concurrently, there has been a cultural shift towards valuing experiences, particularly those that are market-segmented. Looking forward, we predict this growing demand will drive further consolidation in the sector, with headliner talent costs continuing to soar and venue and production expenses becoming increasingly capital-intensive. For independent event curators, many of these expenses are incurred upfront, making it difficult to grow and scale in the live event domain. These event curators could benefit from partnerships with value-added investors, who can support with upfront costs for venue deposits, securing headliner talent, and forging sponsorships and brand partnerships– while retaining full ownership of their ventures. There exists an underserved market of event curators specializing in events for 600 to 6,000 attendees. We identified a pipeline of 250+ event curators serving this space and surveyed them, with 85% of them expressing a need and desire for such a value-added investment partner.