Ashton Kutcher is departing Sound Ventures, the venture firm he co-founded with Guy Oseary 11 years ago, to launch a new fund with Morgan Beller, a former general partner at NFX who previously co-led Meta’s Libra cryptocurrency project and spent nearly three years at Andreessen Horowitz, the Wall Street Journal reported. The name of the new firm has not yet been disclosed.
Sound Ventures, whose portfolio includes Brex, Gusto, and early investments in OpenAI, Anthropic and Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs, built its reputation on concentrated bets in leading AI labs. Kutcher’s new venture is instead expected to focus on early-stage investments in AI infrastructure, energy and deep tech startups centered on hard science and engineering, marking a shift toward the layer of technology underpinning major AI companies. Stanford finance professor Ilya Strebulaev, who tracks top-performing venture investors, noted Kutcher’s consistent presence on rankings of leading unicorn investors.
According to the Journal, Kutcher’s departure stemmed partly from differing views with Sound Ventures on investment stage, with the firm favoring more established companies rather than early-stage bets. Kutcher, who has known OpenAI CEO Sam Altman since Altman’s earlier venture Loopt, will remain an adviser to Sound Ventures, while Oseary and Sound general partner Effie Epstein will advise Kutcher and Beller’s new fund.
