LOS ANGELES — Sling & Stone’s US operation has launched a startup division created to work with early stage, venture-backed tech companies.

Mikaela Street, who was a Sling & Stone account director in Auckland, will lead the group as startup PR director.

During her three years with the agency, Street has been responsible for crafting campaigns for companies from startups to Slack, Uber and Twitter. Before that, the US native held positions at Acumen Republic and Microsoft, also in New Zealand.

The new offer comes roughly four years after Australia-based Sling & Stone’s 2018 expansion into the US. Last year, the agency was acquired by Chime’s VCCP and opened an office in Singapore. 

Sling & Stone was launched in 2010 in Australia by Vuki Vujasinovic with a focus on start-ups, high-growth technology and challenger brands. The agency was PRovoke Media’s Australasian agency of the year in 2020.

“I launched Sling & Stone 12 years ago because the ambitious founders who were taking risks to fix entire industries didn’t have the PR support they deserved,” Vujasinovic said. “Our industry was not stepping up to serve the most interesting and important clients out there: the challenger brands and disruptive tech businesses that were shaping the future. We’ve been working with these types of brands since day one so it brings me incredible joy to have Mikaela formalize and lead our early stage startup offering for the US market. Mikaela’s passion, energy, and skill in helping founders tell their story is second to none.”