• by Larissa Faw , August 26, 2015

Proper Villains, which has offices in New York, Boston and Atlanta, is joining the Brand Collective, a network of advertising, public relations and marketing agencies to provide marketing and brand-building expertise to early-stage startups. 

Backed by venture capital firm Brand Foundry Venture (BFV), the network brings together agencies across the U.S., including San Diego, Minneapolis, Detroit, and New York to contribute their services to companies in BFV's portfolio that may not have access to these agencies. 

“As entrepreneurs as well as strategists, we understand how launching a new brand is a once-in-a-business-lifetime opportunity,” said Proper Villains Managing Partner Meghan Gardner. “It is crucial to get this (or messaging) right from the get-go. So we’re thrilled to be able to provide our services to some of the companies that will be brands to envy in the months and years to come.” 

Proper Villains was attracted to this deal for the opportunity to work with emerging brands. After all, the next startup may become tomorrow's billion-dollar client particularly since BFV has an eye in spotting winners. Former investments under the Collective include the now-successful brands Warby Parker, Birchbox and Events.com.   

Still, this isn't actually a part of a monetary deal and Proper Villains won't be working in tandem with the other agencies. Instead the agency will be a resource to companies whose needs match its areas of experience. And this isn't pro-bono work either. Just as with companies outside of the collective, the agency will consider many factors when determining pricing -- including the size and stage of the company that it is working with. The same goes for the length of the engagement. Proper Villains will approach each startup on an individual basis. While the agency prefers to have a longer engagement with companies, it may do project work as well if that approach seems best the client, the shop indicated.