portfolio · 03 companies

The companies we're drawing.

Each venture starts as a pattern we've seen across a dozen engagements — a problem big enough, common enough, and specific enough to deserve its own product. We build inside the studio, then spin out.

01 · live
GATHER
Main Stage — 2:00 PM
Sound check complete · Keynote ready
event 72% complete · on schedule
"run of show — march '26"
● live since may '25

Gather.

AI operations platform for event producers. Real-time attendee flow, run-of-show coordination, and vendor scheduling.

Gather sits inside the events operators were already running. It coordinates vendor check-ins, tracks run-of-show in real time, manages attendee flow, and surfaces problems before they become crises — all in one place instead of scattered across radios and spreadsheets.

We built it because every event producer we worked with had the same lament: "The day-of is chaos, and by the time we know something's wrong, it's too late to fix."

stage
Live · Series Seed
customers
340 event producers
scale
2.1M attendees/yr
02 · in development

On the bench.

private beta · q3 '26— venture 02 —

Present.

Guest experience platform for hospitality operators.

Most restaurant groups run guest management across five tools and a spreadsheet. The host stand doesn't know what the kitchen knows; the GM doesn't see the patterns. Present unifies reservations, guest preferences, floor management, and feedback into one system that remembers everything a great host would — across every location.

stage: private beta opening Q3 2026.

born from:embedded work with three restaurant groups running 40+ locations in '25.

Join the waitlist →
PRESENT · floor
Saturday 7pm — 12 covers waiting
Martinez, party of 4VIP · window
Chen, party of 2anniversary
Okafor, party of 6allergies noted
"present — host view"
CIRCUIT · schedule
Monday classes · all studios
6:00 AM — Spin · 3 studios
7:30 AM — Yoga · 4 studios
9:00 AM — HIIT · 2 studios
42 instructors · 90 locations synced
"circuit — schedule view"
early dev— venture 03 —

Circuit.

Multi-venue ops platform for fitness and wellness brands.

Mindbody and ClassPass assume single locations. Circuit assumes a network: unified scheduling across 10, 50, or 100 studios. Member journey tracking that knows when someone is slipping. Instructor coordination that balances workload and commute. Plain-language reports an ops manager can hand to ownership without a spreadsheet translation.

stage:early development. shipping a closed alpha to four fitness brands in Q1 '27.

born from: a rebuild of the operations stack at a 45-studio boutique fitness brand.

Get early access →
03 · how a pencil venture comes together

The path is the same every time.

01

Pattern, not idea.

If we haven't watched at least three serious teams struggle with a problem in client work, it's not ready to be a venture. Notebooks before pitch decks.

02

In-house first.

Early builds happen inside the studio. The first version ships fast, gets in front of users from our network, and earns the right to become a standalone company.

03

Spin out when ready.

Ventures graduate into independent companies — own team, own cap table, own Series A — when product-market fit is real and the company is ready to scale alone.

04

Vertical-native always.

Every venture has to fit our thesis on in-person experience operators. We don't chase opportunities outside it. Even good ones.

04 · for investors

Backing the studio.

A single investment gets exposure to every venture we build — Gather live, Present and Circuit in development, and the pipeline beyond.

Before each venture spins out, studio investors have the option to allocate directly into that company's seed or Series A on preferred terms. You see the company up close — real metrics, real team, real momentum — before deciding whether to double down. If you pass, your studio position still gives you exposure through our stake.

Built for investors who —

  • Believe in vertical AI for in-person experience operators as a category
  • Want diversified early exposure across the portfolio
  • Want the option to concentrate when conviction builds
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Have an operations problem in events, hospitality, or fitness that should be a company? Tell us about it.