Thuzio has launched a financing round in partnership with SeedInvest, a leading equity crowdfunding platform that provides accredited and non-accredited investors with access to pre-vetted startup investment opportunities. Thuzio is a sports events and media company that produces a national event series featuring live interviews with sports icons in premium hospitality settings for a business membership community.

Thuzio is one of two companies founded by Tiki Barber (New York Giants), Mark Gerson (GLG), and Jared Augustine (Seamless/GrubHub). In 2012, Thuzio launched an online marketplace for booking professional athletes. The original marketplace is now branded Julius, a leading venture-backed influencer marketing software platform. While building the software business, the team responded to demand for live athlete appearances by launching an events arm. In 2017, the events arm was separated as an independent company, maintaining the Thuzio brand.

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“The vision for Thuzio from day one has been to better connect the public with professional athletes. Our event series is doing that in a unique and powerful way,” said Barber, Co-founder and Co-Chairman of Thuzio. “We are able to create meaningful experiences for the athlete community that enables them to share their stories, as they tell it, with a respectful and influential audience.”

Thuzio will produce 60+ member events across eight core U.S. markets this year, including events at the Super Bowl, NFL Draft, NBA All-Star Weekend, and The Masters. Its membership base boasts seven of the top ten U.S. banks, six of the top ten U.S. consulting firms, and four of the top ten B2B SaaS companies. Thuzio is raising capital to expand to 20 U.S. and international markets, develop its original content, and lead the category of “Live Sports Storytelling.”

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“We chose crowdfunding to make it easy for the entire Thuzio community to participate in the round and share in our growth,” said Augustine, Co-founder and CEO of Thuzio. “SeedInvest’s investor network overlaps nicely with our community and will help us establish Thuzio ambassadors nationwide. Once we fully understood the opportunity with SeedInvest, it was a no-brainer.”

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