LA Venture

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.  She shares go to market strategies in healthcare and much more.

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.