Next Gen: The Business Hub for Tomorrow’s Leaders
We’ve known Dylan Gambardella and Justin Lafazan, the two co-founders of Next Gen, since they ran their first summit years ago. The event has evolved into one of our favorites of the year and is a sister-community to our own 1517 Community. Now they’re planning on taking it to the next level and we’re excited to help them make that happen.
Justin and Dylan embody a lot of the intangible elements we look for in a team. We’ve had the chance to observe them over time, see how they deal with events, crises, and problems, and grow as both people and founders. While Next Gen doesn’t look like a typical investment for us — we usually stick to pure technology companies — the combined factors of a compelling roadmap and a world-class team brought us to a place where it made sense to call them part of the 1517 portfolio family.
Next Gen’s flagship product is an annual conference in New York City (you can apply here, Danielle and Zak will be at the 2019 event) bringing together young founders, professionals, and students to meet and hear from speakers and mentors in industries they want to join. One of the elements we particularly enjoy is the curation and referral power we’ve seen at the Summits. The Next Gen team does a good job at keeping track of who is in their network, what they need (and can offer), and who they should meet. We’ve met a number of grantees and portfolio companies through the Summit.
It helps that we’ve had a number of our community members also speak highly of the Next Gen Summit and team — and Next Gen is good about collecting real testimonials and success stories.
Welcome to the 1517 portfolio, Dylan, Justin, and team Next Gen!
Interested in getting our feedback on your startup, product, or idea? Reach out.
