The NYC Digital Media Startup Scene (& 2 Companies to Watch)

Am flying back from NYC to SoCal as we speak, after spending the past 4 days there in meetings and events.  All related to digital media.  This trip, once again, reinforces how vibrant the NYC entrepreneurial community is (no surprises there) and how important to such vibrancy is a sense of real entrepreneurial community and collective action/motivation.

Two data points that drove this point home.

First, I visited our good partner WeWork’s newest NYC home downtown near the World Trade Center memorial.  It just opened one month ago, and it already is packed to the gills (this picture below to the left captures the scene).  The energy and creativity are palpable.  It is impossible for any real human being to not be inspired by the collective passion reflected in that sea of Macbooks and farmers’ tables (and as the smooth wafts of lattes filled the air).

Second, my partner and Chairman of the Manatt Digital Media group, Hale Boggs, and I hosted our 3rd Digital Media Meetup in the Biergarten of The Standard Hotel in the meatpacking district this past Tuesday night (the picture to the right shows the two of us and Hale’s son, Andrew, who is on the left).  Each one of these meetups gets bigger.  Each one lasts longer.  And an increasing amount of suds are poured (together with the brats necessary to be washed down).  Once again, the overall “stew” was quite electric -- a melange of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, writers, philanthropists, filmmakers, agents.   I heard from several after that real meaningful connections were made.  And, that’s what it’s all about, apart from also simply being a call-to-action to celebrate our shared passion for innovating in the media and technology space.  These are the innovators.  This rubbing of shoulders is an important way that “it" gets done.  This kind of thought exchange are the bread crumbs that lead to the promised land of ingenuity and, ultimately, to solutions.  It’s also simply cool to do it in the Biergarten of The Standard Hotel on a gorgeous September night!

On this trip, I also visited with several digital media startups.  Two of my favorites that I have tracked for quite some time are in one of my favorite areas of focus -- music.  First, Mixify.  Great pedigree of music investors/advisors.  Passionate and talented CEO, David Moricca.  Disruptive vision (in the most positive ways) for the EDM world -- combining virtual/online events in an otherwise venue-only based world (a theme about which I have frequently written).  Second, Rukkus.  Again, passion exudes from the pores of the founding fathers Joe Messineo and Manick Bhan.  Their aim is to have a better -- transformative -- ticketing platform for live events.  Essentially, to beat StubHub and others at their own game (both from a user experience perspective and via Rukkus's proprietary ticketing algorithms that take ticket feeds from all sites and optimize your seating based on the price you want to pay).  The service also is a live music recommendation engine -- you pick the city, they’ll show you all the shows (big or small).  Intriguing.

Check them both out.