Community

Every month 30 fantastic entrepreneurs and investors gather for inspiration, to meet new people, have fun and help each other succeed.
Inc. Magazine article on our LDV Community:
"Knife, Fork, Investment: How Monthly Dinner Gatherings Feed An Entrepreneurial Network"

The Goal

Typically at dinner, there are 30 entrepreneur executives, a couple of investors and other unique guests. We strive for gender balance and a mixture of 1st time, funded, serial entrepreneurs. At least 50% of the attendees are new each month.

A key aspect of the community is asking how we can help each other. Then we take the 30 asks from each dinner along with photos and send an email to our whole community to help each other. The more helpful people will be invited back more often. Hopefully, we can continue building a fantastic and very collaborative NYC tech community where people help each other as much as possible.

The community

2000+ Members
Equal gender balance

When & where

What: Drinks/Dinner. Open bar for 1hr, 3-course meal, wine, etc.
When: Monthly and dates change each month. 10x per yr.
Where: Typically downtown NYC.
Costs: We frequently have partial sponsors. We split the remainder of the costs. ~$50 per person.
Invites: Community referrals are the only way to get invited.
Started: 2011
Sponsors rotating: Latham & Watkins, Orrick, Softlayer, JP Morgan Private Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, Google Cloud for Startups, Coatue, La Fosse Associates, and many more.
Please email if you wish to Sponsor.
Photographers: Ron Haviv, Robert Wright

Photos

Testimonials

“What a fantastic gathering of entrepreneurs, investors and generally interesting people from our city and beyond. Was really great to meet folks outside of the typical circles over a meal.”
— Alex Cavoulacos, COO & Head of Product, HUG & Co-Founder, The Muse
“The group you curate and the format you’ve established are top notch. In fact, several of us were saying how we usually try to avoid “networking” events at all cost - but that your dinners are the absolute outlier/exception. Very inspiring, actionable - and more than wonderfully enjoyable LDV dinners that he hosts.”
— Gesche Haas, Founder & CEO, Dreamers & Doers
“Congratulations, Evan, for your 11-year anniversary. You have been a model in what it means to create a sustainable community and if there’s anyone I trust to be building good things in this arena, it’s you.”
— Lori Mazor, Founder & CEO, Synthetivity
“I’d heard about your gatherings for years and it was great to finally experience one - your generosity of spirit is remarkable and I was honored to be included.”
— Rick Smolan, CEO, Against All Odds Productions
“About the coolest and most helpful bunch of folks you will come across in the NYC startup community. Evan has put together an incredible network of entrepreneurs and investors.”
— Mark Birch, Global Startup Advocate, Amazon Web Services
“Being surrounded by like-minded people was transformative.”
— Brandon Holley, Chief Fashion Officer, Shoptrue
“Evan manages to pull together a witty and ambitious group of founders together every month. This is a must-attend event in NYC if you can score an invite.”
— Vivek Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO, Movable Ink
“Exciting to meet an array of new faces and walk away actually knowing you want to follow up with several people you just met. Great use of time.”
— Richard Greenfield, Partner, TMT Analyst, LightShed Partners & GP, LightShed Ventures
“It’s like a Jackson Pollock painting. You throw a bunch of great people together and something amazing will emerge.”
— Andrew Bogle, Managing Director, Reva Capital Markets
“This event puts together some of the best and brightest the city has to offer and I was humbled to be invited into this community of truly incredible human beings.”
— Tristan Louis, President and CEO, Casebook PBC
“Great crowd and friendly conversations! Coming from San Francisco, I couldn’t ask for a better event to meet talented entrepreneurs in NYC. Evan is a first class host, I am grateful to be a part of the experience.”
— Sherman Hu, Investor
“You did it again— what a fantastic gathering of some of the brightest entrepreneurs from our city. Everyone I met was so engaged and generous. Thank you for building a community that feels like home, I look forward to the next one.”
— Julia Rhodes Davis, Consulting Senior Advisor, Data & Society Research Institute

Community [partial list]

Adam Paulisick, Founder & CEO maad labs
Adam Rothenberg, Partner BoxGroup
Adam Quinton, Founder & CEO Lucas Point Ventures
Adam Soldinger, SVP of Strategy & Ops Range Digital Ventures
Alain Miguel, Head Of Ops, Modalyst Wix
Alexandra Cavoulacos, COO HUG
Alexander Shashou, CEO 10Beauty
Alexis (Anderson) Tarlow, Head of Special Projects @ Thirty Madison
Alia Shafir, Head of Product Experience Bloomberg
Alicia Syrett, Founder & CEO Pantegrion Capital
...

In addition to our LDV Community Dinners, we host our annual LDV Vision Summit and Happy Hour events.