They say it’s bad form to turn up to an occasion empty handed.

So for Web Summit, as well as supporting Lisbon superstars Unbabel, we wanted to bring a little extra with us.

For the first time, we’ll be bringing our Augur Unbound programme to Web Summit.

Free PR

The idea of Augur Unbound is that “unsexy tech” companies pre Series A shouldn’t be wasting their time thinking too much about PR.

And at the same time, our real service for ongoing clients is much more than just emailing news to journalists.

Therefore, if we meet a company that has an interesting story pre Series A, we’ll share it with a handful of the right influencers for free.

And if it’s not a story, we have the perfect incentive to tell you honestly.

Why do we do it?

• There’s no better source for journalists than a story shared without financial incentive. It sets the precedent for everything we share and helps calibrate our awareness of which stories help.
• Helping the right companies thrive earlier on benefits the entire ecosystem.
• Our mission is to re-engineer PR and Comms for fast-growing tech companies. By “giving away” what people think of as part of the main proposition, it helps us concentrate on the areas that really provide value over the longer term.

Why listen to us?

Augur’s founder (or, me, as I like to call myself), has experience in this space and the honesty to dispense it concisely:

• Worked briefly at Wired and has written about tech and culture for Quartz, TechCrunch, the Guardian, Telegraph, tech.eu and more.
• Led comms from Series A – C for Tradeshift, a now $750M+ valutation B2B tech giant
• Ran a community of 3500+ tech journalists and PRs, with members from Apple to the Economist

Who and How?

As you may have noticed, our specialism is “unsexy tech” — think Fintech like GoCardless, Tradeshift or Pleo, omnichannel tech like BookingBug and Birdback, devtech like Pusher and SaaS like Apperio or Glofox.

This is the sweet spot and really the lens for our experience and advice.

If you’re just another consumer app, crowdfunding permutation or (god forbid) a Transferwise ripoff (what’s with those), you might be better off seeking help elsewhere.

If you think you have a story, get in touch and we’ll let you know.