46. Your group chat is a $37M problem
Posh, Partiful, and the battle for your Saturday night.
Today's letter includes: a protein espresso martini no one asked for, Hilary Duff at Fenway (but not for the reason you think), a Detroit man moving into a 68-room mansion with four robots, why financial advisers hate your AI more than they hate their competition, and the chef from Horses breaks his 3 year silence.
Posh closed a $37 million Series B last week, and if you’re in circles where people still use Eventbrite without irony, you’ve probably never heard of it — another reason I’m surprised they gave their exclusive to Fortune behind a paywall.
But it appears Posh’s business has real legs, and it built its identity in the exact space Eventbrite was too corporate to touch: the underground party, the drag race watch party, the random DJ set. Seven years later, they have 8 million users, $350 million in gross ticket sales, brand partnerships with the NBA, Adidas, and HBO.
But what’s most interesting about this raise is that Posh has more or less said it’s done being a ticketing company. They want to be the infrastructure for everyone who makes your social life possible.
To understand the ambition, you need to know the neighborhood. Events-tech is stratified by vibe more than features. The incumbents — Eventbrite, Evite, both basically flat in growth — are losing ground to a younger generation of platforms. DICE (raising $238 million on a music-first, no-resale model) got there first in Europe, then was acquired by Fever last June. Luma grew to 2 million event signups a month on a $3 million seed round; its natural habitat is the founder dinner, the carefully curated guest list.
Then there’s Partiful. Backed by a16z — which last year started requiring all Tech Week hosts to use it, probably in an effort to increase MAU and steal share from Luma — Partiful grew 400% year-over-year and added 2 million users in Q1 2025 alone. Apple tried to copy it. Partiful didn’t blink.
Posh is betting that none of these platforms have solved the real problem.
Their vision, published alongside the raise, reads as follows:
Chapter one was the organizer toolkit.
Chapter two is a Netflix-style discovery feed where events are recommended to consumers based on who they know.
Chapter three is letting anyone monetize the ability to bring people together.
Not just promoters and brands, but the person in your life who always knows where to go. They’re calling them “connectors,” and Posh wants to be their infrastructure.
“This is the ultimate climax of our vision: a world where anyone can monetize the ability to bring people together, birthing countless new IRL communities that we can then can surface to the most relevant consumers. As redundant as it is to say, loneliness is a real problem. Allowing those who are solving it day-to-day to build sustainable income doing so is the only feasible solution.”
You can already see this economy taking shape. Devin Williams hosts Wishlist froyo meetups at 16 Handles in Williamsburg. Emily Sundberg schedules Feed Me reader meetups for paid subscribers whenever she travels to London or SF. Molly and Freya Hawk are running an eight-night trip around Korea. Posh’s bet is that there are thousands more where they came from, and that the infrastructure to find them, monetize them, and fill the room doesn’t exist yet.
Which brings us back to who wins. On paper, Posh has the better business: real revenue, clear monetization, a vision expansive enough for institutional money. Partiful has $27M in VC money, no current revenue (they say ticketing will drive revenue), and is running on cultural momentum. But Partiful’s moat isn’t features — it’s trust. It lives inside existing relationships, with people who already said yes to being in your life. Posh has to convince you the strangers in your extended network are worth your Saturday night.
That’s a harder sell when people are flakier than ever.
Rumor has it that Substack is suppressing free content. If you’d like to resist the algorithm pushing paid content only, then liking, sharing, quoting and restacking this newsletter will help! <3
Happy fly fishing! If you’re upstate you can celebrate the start of fly fishing season with beers from West Kill Brewing and a vinyl DJ set at The Arnold House in Livingston Manor on April 3rd.
Not a cat killer, he says. Horses was the hottest restaurant in L.A. until co-owner Liz Johnson (who seems to have a flair for the dramatic - see Frog Club) accused her husband and business partner of murdering up to 14 pets and being a generally bad person. The James Beard-nominated chef just broke his silence, three years later, to say he is “not a cat killer.” A story about a marriage, a restaurant, and why you should never go into business with someone you love.
It’s the last week to have DDOBAR. This yubu tart tasting menu from the team behind Joomak Banjum is delicious and a great value - 13 courses for $75. I had it a few years and loved it. Their last day is 3/28.
As one yubu tart exits, a rice cake enters. RAON is teaming up with Rice Blossom for a Korean dessert workshop and lunch experience. You’ll learn how to make four different danja (filled rice cakes) and enjoy a four-course set meal from chef Soogil Lim on March 27 at $225 pp.
Cigarette trays continue to be the hottest party decoration. It was definitely the most photographed thing at the Mother x Martha Stewart launch party, besides Martha herself, whom a friend in attendance confirmed, “looked great.”
Hilary Duff is giving the commencement speech at Northeastern. The ceremony is April 29 at Fenway Park. Her new album Luck… or something debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200, her highest chart position since 2007. The graduating class of 2026 was born the same year Lizzie McGuire premiered. This is what dreams are made of!
Financial advisers are offended by your AI fact checking. A new study found that financial advisers were significantly more bothered when clients got a second opinion from an AI than from another human adviser. Make of that what you will.
San Vicente Bungalows is expanding to Palm Springs, probably. SVB — the notoriously members-only West Hollywood hotel that's become the de facto living room of Hollywood — is eyeing new locations. Jeff Klein is looking at Palm Springs and Santa Barbara, close enough to L.A. to keep his Hollywood core happy.
When you think AI company, think Tudor Revival-style architecture. A guy named Calvin Gee bought a 35,000-square-foot mansion in Detroit for $800,000. Now, he’s moving back to Detroit and into the city’s largest mansion with four robots — all prototypes equipped with AI developed by his company — which he’ll live alongside.
In addition to being his home, the 68-room mansion will also serve as the headquarters for his company, Engage. This will require a multi-year renovation of the property. He says he will also install his AI into the house, so he can talk to it and it can talk back. Gee must have loved Smart House growing up.
"Where the former servants’ quarters sat, Gee sees office space. The main floor, composed of the main hall and great room, will be a space for coworking and hosting events.” Crain’s
Did anyone see The Bride!? Maggie Gyllenhaal's feminist Frankenstein retelling The Bride! apparently spent $65 million in marketing but I sure didn’t hear about it. It’s a shame because critics who saw it largely loved it. A cult classic in the making. Meanwhile Ryan Gosling's Project Hail Mary opened to over $80 million — the second-highest opening weekend for a non-franchise original in a decade, behind only Oppenheimer.
The Ample Hills duo is back with chicken burgers. Are chicken burgers… good? Either way, there’s also ice cream.
The most controversial Bachelorette lives up to her name. ABC pulled Taylor Frankie Paul's season just three days before the premiere after TMZ released a 2023 video of Paul attacking her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen. The arrest was already public knowledge. Paul is lawyering up, ABC is potentially out tens of millions in license fees and marketing costs, and the Mormon Wives cinematic universe remains the most chaotic thing on television.
The protein industrial complex has gone too far. Buffalo Wild Wings launched the Espresso Proteini — an espresso martini infused with Buffalo Dry Rub and 10 grams of Muscle Milk protein powder, rimmed with more dry rub for good measure. TikTok reviewers described the experience as "a roller coaster" and "probably the weirdest martini flavoring." KFC responded on X by tagging Dude Wipes and writing "just gonna let you guys handle this one."
Need to know: Over 1 million Lebanese displaced as war rages on. Trump postponed strike threat after “good talks” with Iran. Iran denies these talks happened. Insider trading on oil extremely likely. ICE is in airports now. TSA has not been paid for nearly 6 weeks. More than 450 TSA agents have quit since the shutdown began. LaGuardia was shut down after a fatal plane crash. By the end of the week, the war in Iran will likely have cost the U.S. $25 Billion.
Thanks for reading!
An excellent one