LA Venture

The hippies were right. From music festivals, to veganism, to eastern philosophy, and now psychedelics.   In this fascinating episode, Greg Kubin tells us about the growing psychedelic movement that is gaining momentum as we start to understand more about how the brain works. Greg's fund, PsyMed is a $25M fund investing in psychedelic medicine and mental health technologies.

Should we be pouring massive amounts of time and money into web3 or is it just technology looking for a use case?  Pitbull Ventures founder Brad Zions is also the producer of Kissing Jessica Stein and the co-founder of Lemonade restaurants.  He tells us why movies and restaurants are bad investments and why, in his opinion, web3 is even worse.  Pitbull is a generalist seed/preseed fund that target...

Will Bumpus from Concrete Rose joins us today.  Concrete Rose has grown quickly and is now leading rounds with $1-2M checks to support a virtuous cycle of wealth and opportunity for underrepresented communities of color.   Will tells us about his own focus on sustainability and where that came from in his life. He also shares why he and his partners may (hopefully) be part of a growing trend of VC...

Marcy Venture Partners has grown from $30M to $900M AUM, now leading Series A and Series B rounds.   Charlie Hanna tells us how he, Jay-Z, Jay Brown and Larry Marcus work together at Marcy to evaluate and champion the brands of the future.  He points out that celebrities like Jay-Z and Rihanna didn't make their billions from their music, but from their ability to build brands.

Megan Holston-Alexander leads a16z's Cultural Leadership Fund (CLF). CLF connects the world's greatest cultural leaders with the best new technology companies and advances young African Americans into tech.    Megan tells us about the importance of getting Black capital onto cap tables, Black talent into tech and building generational wealth. She shares how a16z has grown CLF and its influential n...

B Capital has rapidly grown to over $6B AUM and has just announced its first early-stage fund, the $250M Ascent Fund run by a superstar team that includes Eduardo Saverin, Gabe Greenbaum, Karen Page, Karan Mohla, and Howard Morgan. Raj says B Capital was not an overnight success but was built steadily on the conviction that there needed to be a firm that could be best in class on value-add and als...

What does it mean to be more authentic online and will it lead to a nicer Internet?    How will future social networks make it easier to establish an online identity, find community and enable community ownership?   Faraz  Fatemi, partner at Lightspeed, brings his perspective on consumer psychology to today's episode of LA Venture.   

Climate is eating the world.   Shomik Dutta says that climate, and specifically the need to decarbonize every major industry will "eat the world" in the same way that Marc Andreessen famously said that software would eat the world in 2011.   Shomik argues that the TAM in climate is multiples of the TAM in software today.  The immensity of the need is one of the motivations of the work that he is d...

Another great example of top Silicon Valley talent moving to LA!   Kyle Lui was a partner at multi-billion dollar DCM until he left to join Ben Ling at Bling Capital.  He shares thoughts on how a small fund can still build best in class playbooks and processes to support founders.  

Paige Craig shares his amazing story of sneaking into Iraq dressed as a CNN reporter, how he built a private military from scratch inside Baghdad and then how he parlayed that exit into an incredible investing career that includes Wish, Scale, Gusto, AngelList and many others.

Corporate venture capital is becoming a first choice option for founders seeking the value-add that corporates can bring in an industry.   This is the thesis of Laurent Grill as he seeks to build the #1 choice PropTech fund at JLL Spark.  

Cannabis is still a schedule 1 narcotic (cocaine is a less serious schedule 2).     Cannabis plants have RFIDs on them and are tracked from seed to sale.   Casa Verde's Karan Wadhera tells us why he sees this and other regulations as an opportunity and why he and Snoop set up Casa Verde to invest from $1M to $15M in cannabis startups.

Do you feel good about the purchases you make and the trash you generate as a consumer?   Dan Fishman believes in empowering consumers and he shares perspective for startups and brands that are being built to serve our new regenerative future.  

Maureen Klewicki heads up investing at Cedars-Sinai Health Ventures, the venture arm of Cedars-Sinai. Cedars-Sinai is a top 10 hospital in the US that serves more than 1 million people each year with over 4,500 physicians and nurses. Maureen discusses opportunities she sees for startups to be created to address issues in care delivery, the labor shortage crisis, and the move to value-based care. ...

Amanda Groves shares how startups can best navigate working with elite athletes and celebrities.   How should a startup structure an equity arrangement?  Has cancel culture gone too far?  And how does a firm like PLUS Capital help to measure and quantify an engagement's impact.

Kathryne Cooper tells us about Jumpstart Nova, a new $55M fund investing in incredible Black healthcare founders at the seed and series A stage. Jumpstart has LPs such as  Meharry  Medical College, Eli Lilly and Company, Cardinal Health and is part of the trend of VCs offering strategic help from their LPs as an important value-add.

The best day to sell your company is the worst day to re-invest that money.  The best day to plan for that sale is not a month before it happens. Evoke's Michael Carney shares wealth management tips for startup execs and tells us about Evoke's fund of funds strategy.

Ludis Capital founder Matilda Sung is investing $500k - 1M at the intersection of sports media and technology.     She explains why the NFL looks up to the NBA's digital engagement, how sports betting is different in the US than in other countries and she clarifies who really owns the rights to digital assets like TopShop NFTs.

Jonathan Hung tells us about his two new funds:   Trousdale Ventures has deployed over $300M the last two years and is a partnership with Phillip Sarofim.   Playhouse Ventures is a web3/NFT fund with Steve Aoki.   He also shares his perspective on doing business with China and how to choose a manufacturing partner in today's market.

This episode is so good.  If you care about how culture is born in a city or what makes LA tech special, then get some inspiration as Crosscut's Brett Brewer talks about the early days of building Intermix and MySpace and how he sees the ecosystem evolving.

Venture investment in consumer brands goes in and out of vogue.  Amanda Schutzbank explains how Willow Growth takes a unique approach to consumer investing that combines the best of venture and private equity investing.

One of everyone's favorites, Ed Wilson, joins to talk to about Impulsum Ventures, how they've built a venture firm alongside a 30-person dev shop and his sunny approach to life.

Another great Series A fund in LA!     Yelena Shkolnik is a partner at Jump Capital.  Jump may be most recognized for their crypto work, but we have a broad conversation on content, commerce, fintech and how those are converging in today's ownership economy.  

Every pitch today involves community.  Upfront partner and former CMO Kobie Fuller tells us how the best brands are giving users the tools to be brand advocates and how those same brands are tapping into the community to get insights.   We also talk about being black in venture and what inspired Kobie to build Valence, a network for black professionals.

The Gotham Gal herself, Joanne Wilson, tells us that department stores are dead, but gives us a glimpse into the future and her own upcoming cannabis store that will pair your cannabis with your needs, mood and even the food you're serving that night.   We also cover the state of VC today and much more.