Earlier this month, angel investor Chris Sacca announced that his firm Lowercase Capital was launching a new Los Angeles-focused fund, and that he’d hired someone to run it. Now we know who that someone is — Matt Mazzeo, a business development executive at Creative Artists Agency.
It might seem odd for Lowercase to bring on someone from a talent agency, but Mazzeo’s job at CAA has actually been to bridge the tech and media worlds, helping startups navigate the entertainment industry and vice versa. He told me he’ll be doing something similar at Lowercase by investing the new fund (he isn’t disclosing its size, but the name will be Lowercase Stampede) in companies that sit at the intersection of media and technology.
“I think the opportunities in LA are incredible,” he said. “It’s the heart of the entertainment community, and you’ve also got all these entrepreneurs who are sticking around after they graduate from UCLA and USC and Caltech.”
At the same time, even though Lowercase is “betting heavily” on the LA ecosystem, Mazzeo said that his investments won’t be limited to one geography, and that he expects to spend a lot of time in New York and the Bay Area, too.
Mazzeo said he will be the first partner Sacca has brought on at the firm. The two of them have been friends for several years, with a relationship built on “secret, late-night wine-drinking and jam sessions” at South by Southwest. When Sacca reached out with the opportunity, Mazzeo said he was attracted to the firm’s “unique way of just finding great young talent and nurturing them.”
The hire isn’t a sign that Sacca plans to bring on a bunch of other partners, Mazzeo said: “We’re going to continue the tradition that he’s built of being as lean and nimble as possible.”
Lowercase’s current portfolio includes Bit.ly, Chartbeat, Kickstarter, Uber, and many others.
