Ashton Kutcher exits Sound Ventures, launches new VC firm with Morgan Beller
▼ Summary
– Ashton Kutcher is leaving Sound Ventures to co-found a new VC fund with Morgan Beller, who previously worked at NFX, Meta, and Andreessen Horowitz.
– Kutcher’s exit is not due to underperformance at Sound Ventures, which has backed companies like Brex, Gusto, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
– The split reflects differing investment focuses: Sound Ventures targets established companies, while Kutcher’s new fund will pursue early-stage AI infrastructure, energy, and deep tech startups.
– Kutcher will remain an adviser to Sound Ventures, and Sound’s Guy Oseary and Effie Epstein will advise the new firm.
– The new fund’s name has not been publicly announced, and Kutcher’s departure partly stems from disagreements over which startup stages to target.
Ashton Kutcher is parting ways with Sound Ventures, the venture capital firm he co-founded more than a decade ago, to launch a new investment vehicle with Morgan Beller. According to the Wall Street Journal, the actor and longtime tech investor is joining forces with Beller, who most recently served as a general partner at seed-stage firm NFX and previously co-led Meta’s cryptocurrency project Libra. Beller also spent nearly three years as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
TechCrunch had previously heard rumblings that Kutcher was preparing to leave Sound Ventures, and the WSJ report now confirms the move while adding fresh details about his partnership with Beller. The name of their new firm has not yet been disclosed.
Kutcher’s departure does not appear to signal trouble at Sound Ventures. Investors often flee underperforming funds, but that is not the case here. Sound has backed major names like Brex and Gusto, and was an early investor in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs.
The split also offers a telling glimpse into where AI investment is headed next. Sound Ventures built its reputation on concentrated, high-conviction bets in category-leading AI labs. Kutcher’s new fund, by contrast, appears to be targeting the layer underneath those companies , the infrastructure and energy that power artificial intelligence.
“He and his fund consistently make it onto [my] rankings of top unicorn investors. An interesting case!” wrote Stanford finance professor Ilya Strebulaev, who tracks top-performing VCs, in a post on X.
Kutcher has known OpenAI’s Sam Altman since Altman founded Loopt, years before the launch of ChatGPT. The decision to leave Sound Ventures was partly driven by differing views on which startup stages to pursue. Sound has leaned toward backing more established companies rather than betting on very early-stage startups, according to the WSJ.
Kutcher and Beller are focused on making early-stage investments in AI infrastructure, energy, and deep tech , startups built around hard science and engineering breakthroughs rather than software alone.
Despite exiting Sound Ventures, Kutcher will continue to serve as an adviser to the firm. Meanwhile, Sound co-founder Guy Oseary and general partner Effie Epstein will advise Kutcher and Beller’s new venture.
(Source: TechCrunch)
