Music Industry

The New Venture Capitalists Are…Rock Stars? Actual Rock Stars? Yep.

There’s a lot of money to be made (and lost) in tech. Bono is a founding member of Elevation Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm with a squillion dollars in value, partly because the company made a very smart Facebook play. But he’s far from the only one dabbling in this area.  Smashd has a few more times.

Meet the newest crop of rock star VCs.

Personas and agendas range. Some link their weighty names with products and causes before they even put down a single coin.

A puff of smoke from Snoop Dogg comes to mind, the hyphenate who’s barked his marijuana-centric bent for months before finally rolling up and deciding to start a fund to invest in new companies.  Then there’s Chamillionaire, a bonafide “Entrepreneur In Residence” at Upfront Ventures, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm.

Then there’s Linkin Park.  The band recently appeared on CNBC, announcing their move to start investing in startups.

Guitarist Brad Delson summed it up, admitting that they’re not experts in tech or investing, but that they do want to link with people who are, and get involved with products that they believe in.

“This is a way for us to support those organizations that we really care about,” Delson added. Details are murky, but the rocker did say the band is working on four deals that they plan to announce in the coming weeks.

Hey, you have to find new revenue streams where you can, right? Read the rest of the article here.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39159 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

One thought on “The New Venture Capitalists Are…Rock Stars? Actual Rock Stars? Yep.

  • Ugh… proof positive that rock as we know it is dead. When “rock stars” care more about revenue streams and investing in startups than making good music. Sounds a bit like the founders of Tidal…

    Then again, we are talking about people like Bono, who has been more of an philanthropist/activist than a rock star for a long time, and ‘bands’ like Linkin Park, who were probably engineered like a boy-band. When they first came up I figured they were so tailor-made for their demographic and the timing was just right, that you could swear it was all expertly fabricated by a record label.

    Will we see any more true rock stars in the coming years? Or just part time musicians/investment bankers?

    Reply

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