NVE plans to leverage the millennial audience of The Future Party for its event business.
Experiential marketing agency NVE is expanding its footprint with the acquisition of millennial-centric media startup The Future Party.
Under the NVE umbrella, TFP plans to grow its event capabilities — tapping into the company’s existing network of brand clients — as well as expand its media business, helping it move into video production and building on its daily newsletter of curated news across the entertainment, technology and music industries that currently is delivered to thousands of people.
As part of the deal, TFP co-founder and CEO Boye Fajinmi has joined NVE as senior director of culture strategy and media. He will continue to oversee TFP.
“The Future Party is going to function as NVE’s unique platform to help our clients better create community and connect to the people and organizations that shape society and shape culture,” says NVE founder and president Brett Hyman. “This is an opportunity for NVE’s vast array of clients to be able to use our events as vehicles to build communities, not just to throw great parties.”
Fajinmi adds that joining NVE will give TFP more resources to grow the brand as it pushes to build out its media business. “We feel like we have a strategy to take what we see as an opportunity and turn it into a business,” he notes, describing what he views as a gap in the marketplace for a community-centric culture brand aimed at millennial and Gen Z audiences.
With offices in Los Angeles and New York, NVE has built out a business servicing the live event needs of brands, such as the Lyft Lounge at Sundance, the 20th Century Fox booth at VidCon, Instagram’s IGTV launch and Amazon’s Black Friday Fire TV pop-up.
Launched seven years ago by Fajinmi and four others, TFP began as an online community for young professionals across entertainment, music, media, tech, fashion and art. It has grown to over 10,000 members across North America and now operates an email newsletter, hosts regular salons and stages events at festivals like SXSW.
Hyman first learned about TFP when he was invited to an event and later asked to speak on a panel. “I have been throwing events for years and producing events all over the world, but I had never seen a group of millennials stop in the middle of their cocktail party and have an educational, cultural moment,” he says. “It wasn’t just about the social aspect. They were there for a purpose. I was incredibly inspired.” Hyman says that it immediately clicked for him that there could be ways for the two companies to collaborate. For example, NVE leveraged TFP’s community for the Lyft Lounge at Sundance, having Fajinmi and his team curate the influencers and tastemakers who would come through the event.
TFP joins NVE’s growing portfolio of companies including Treehouse Fabrication and Scenic.