The 5 Best Places In New York To Meet Your Next Investor

There are few better places for networking than New York City. Money is everywhere, people love to socialize, and business and pleasure regularly overlap in the city’s booming nightlife (and daylife) scene. So whether you live there, or you’re there on a business trip – or pleasure jaunt – to the Big Apple, check out some of these Werk-recommended spots. You might just meet your next investor (or even your future business partner.)

The Wing

If you’re looking to meet some seriously successful women in New York, look no further than The Wing. Audrey Gelman’s millennial-pink all-women’s coworking space and member’s club has expanded at an exponential rate since it was founded in 2016, and has members like Glossier founder Emily Weiss and Lena Dunham, as well as speakers like Hillary Clinton and Meryl Streep. Only downfall is: you have to apply to join. But with free Glossier beauty products and a space this gorgeous, how could you resist?

Soho House

An oldie, but a goodie. While it’s easy to get distracted by celebrity sightings – the Biebers, Shawn Mendes and Gigi Haadid have all been spotted at New York’s new Dumbo House – it’s the people you don’t recognize that you probably want to schmooze with, and the exclusive members club is still where you can find hippest members of the culturati doing business over lattes in the middle of the week. If you have any artsy friends in New York, get them to bring you along as a plus one, or join your local house and reap the benefits when you travel.  

The Bowery Hotel

The lobby of the Bowery Hotel is one of New York’s best spots to see and be seen, and a favorite of celebrity guests visiting the city. Post up in front of the fireplace with your laptop in a big leather chair, order a pizza from the hotel’s excellent Italian restaurant Gemma, and strike up a conversation with the film exec or financier sitting in the chair next to you. 

Stone Street bars

Where better to meet an investor than the center of finance itself? After the closing bell rings, there are a ton of popular bars frequented by the Wall Street elite, where hedge-fund brokers and bond traders meet to discuss numbers over pints of beer and baskets of greasy French fries. Stone Street, a cobblestone area in the middle of the financial district, boasts a number of bars popular with the finance community, such as Underdog and Murphy’s Tavern. Or, for something more upscale nearby, try The Dead Rabbit, which also boasts some of the city’s best cocktails.  

A special event, festival or conference

The best places to network are those with people from your industry, and whatever that industry is, New York probably has a special event catering to it. Pretty much every big conference is based – or makes a stop – in New York, and it would be wise to plan your travel around it. Getting into film? Hobnob at screenings and after-parties during the annual Tribeca film festival. Launching the next big food startup? Make sure to be in town for the New York City Food and Wine Festival. And of course, if you’re starting a wellness business: Get thy ass to In Goop Health, stat.