He Made It To The NFL. Now He Wants To Prove Himself All Over Again.

Speaker A: This is a Camber Creek production. Welcome to Catalyst by Camber Creek.

Speaker B: Conversations that spark something. Most people know Kelvin Beacham, um, as an NFL offensive lineman who has spent nearly 15 years competing at the highest level of professional football. But that's only part of his story. For more than a decade, Kelvin has also been quietly building an entirely different career by learning the craft of investing, working alongside some of the best firms in venture capital and private equity, deploying his own capital, and ultimately building an investment firm with fellow NFL great and NFL hall of Famer Larry Fitzgerald. What makes Kelvin's story so interesting isn't simply that he's an athlete who became an investor, is that he deliberately built the skills to become one. He approached investing the same way he did playing football by having discipline, curiosity, and a genuine willingness to embrace years of delayed gratification. Along the way, he worked with firms like Kleiner Perkins, Silver Lake, Thrive and Sequoia and developed a conviction that athletes shouldn't just lend their names or their influence to businesses. They should have the opportunity to become serious, active participants in the investment ecosystem. We talk about the unique perspective athletes can bring to venture capital, why it takes more than just access to make you a successful investor, how Kelvin and Larry are building an institutional investment platform designed to last for decades, and why Kelvin says that whenever his NFL career ends, investing won't be his second act, it will be the only act he plans to pursue. Let's get into it. All right. All right. This has been a long time in the making. I am so excited about this conversation. Um, kb, you and I have known each other for a while now, but I don't think we've ever met in person. Which is. Which is. Which is pretty wild to me too. Um, and I think, you know, when I met you, you had one of the more distinct. CV is probably a bad word to use, but sort of like you. You are a multi hyphenate in the truest sense of the word. And what struck me about you was you had this unending curiosity about investing. And, uh, I think people like rolling into this. I'm sure people are going to look up your name, be like, oh, yeah, NFL superstar, great. But let's just start off with the basics, like who you are, where you come from, what you do for a living. And I'm very interested to hear how you're going to answer that question.

Speaker A: So where I'm from, uh, and JB man, thanks so much for having me. I agree we've never met in person, but, uh, I feel like We've become really good friends. I think it was 2017, 2018 when Jason Schumann connected us. So, uh, it's great that we've been able to stay connected all this time. But, uh, originally from Heaven Texas, uh, it's about 7,500 people in my hometown. Uh, went to, uh, SMU, uh, Southern Methodist University there in Dallas, Got my undergrad in econ sports management, got my master's in organizational dynamics, uh, was drafted to Pittsburgh Steelers in 2012, um, played there for four years, Jacksonville for a year, New York for three years, um, and then five years, uh, in Arizona. Currently a free agent, getting ready to go into year 15. Uh, and what I do for a living, uh, I move people, uh, with my hands for a living. Um, it has been a, it's been the joy of my life. You know, I tell people all the time playing offensive line, uh, it's been a right tackle and a left tackle, uh, throughout my uh, NFL career is I get to fight and not go to jail for it and not get in trouble for it. So, uh, man, I've had the best job and the best hobby, uh, for the last uh, 15 or so years and have been playing this game that we call football since I was knee high to a duck, man. So uh, it has been, it's been a joy to, to be a part of a game that brings so many people from so many different walks of life, uh, together for a common goal.

Speaker B: And so is that, you know, and the reason I'm, I was interested in how you're going to answer that question is when you and I first met, I, I'll admit I've uh, scratched my head. I'm like, this cat plays in the NFL, like what. Why does he care about these startup companies, especially in the relatively obscure part of the world that, that I hang out in in real estate technology, especially back then. Right. That was early days. So where did you get this, this interest in the, in the startup world and in investing and, and how has that changed for you over the years?

Speaker A: Yeah, you know what's interesting is I always go back to my hometown when I think about the investing journey for me in, in general. Uh, so my grandfather taught my dad how to work on cars. My dad, um, had me around the shop, um, his automotive technician shop when I was young. Um, so everything that I did was around hardware, um, working with your hands. It was something science, technology, engineering, arts or math related every single day. So it was a steam based discipline, um, and a steam based skill that he had. And in 2015, I just blew my knee out playing for the Steelers. M and the super bowl, happened to be in San Francisco in that calendar year and got to hear from Ben Horz, Jeff Jordan, and Joe Montana. And my thought process from listening to them was, if Joe could do it, I could too. So for me, it was learning and the ability to want to learn about this investing ecosystem. And as I started learning, I started to see some of the parallels of what I did growing up. So, you know, working and pulling a transmission out of, uh, a, uh, you know, 96 Ford F150, you're taking something apart, deconstructing it and putting it back together to go make it work again. When you think about evaluating a startup, you're deconstructing what is great about a startup, finding what you need to make better, putting it back together and telling them to go out and go and innovate and innovate in a very, uh, rapid manner and grow and scale the company. And for me, being able to understand the parallels between that of an entrepreneur and that of an athlete, understanding that an, uh, entrepreneur has to have delayed gratification. You have to be able to invest in yourself and in your product for a long time before you ever see any return on your investment. And when you think about the life of an athlete, especially a professional athlete, there's been delayed gratification for many, many years, well before you got to see the fruits of your labor. Now, that was before nil became a thing. Now nil is a thing. So I don't know what athletes are going to say over the next couple decades, considering that, you know, they can start, you know, creating some generational wealth while playing college sports. But, you know, when I was growing up in, uh, college and coming into the pros, leaving the amateur and going into the professional, there was delayed gratification. And I think that's very similar to that of an entrepreneur. So for me, it's been this journey of trying to explore and understand and learn from some of the most fascinating founders and entrepreneurs and CEOs and operators that are not only here in America, but also globally. Because there's so much that you can learn, um, from some of the people that are building some fascinating products across the globe.

Speaker B: But there's still a. To me, like, everything you just said, I'm, um, listening. You could be describing somebody who has a career and has a hobby, but that's not you. Like, if I were to describe. So, um, I don't really follow football. Right. Like, it's just not My thing. And so like when you and I met, I wasn't like, oh, this is a football player who invests. You became an investor who happens to play football. And that was really interesting to me because like you, you were, you were getting uh, again, I know, I know a handful of professional athletes in sports. I don't really follow. And most of these guys have in angel investments. Right. And I could, I could, I could drop some names and you probably know them. You, you know the folks that are like, oh yeah, I'll put whatever here, I'll put whatever there. But they're not getting into the weeds. You get into the weeds and in fact so much, I mean we're going to get into this later, but you've got to, you have your own shop now. Right. So it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a fundamentally different attitude you have. And like what you said about football. Right. Any professional athlete, I, I, I played golf with an LPGA player once, uh, who's a friend of a friend and I'm watching her hit the ball and like she was like, oh yeah, I need to do this, this and this and it's going to land over there. And bam, she did it. I was like, oh my God. Playing sports with anybody who puts their body through it to get to that level is amazing. You guys put yourselves to get to the like the NFL level. You have to be putting yourself. That's a full time job. And yet you're making time to go into this entirely other discipline which is also, spoiler alert, a full time job. How do you do it? And what was the moment like the Joe Montana thing, I hear it, but was there like a specific moment and a specific point in your career actually where you said, you know what, I was a football player who was investing a little bit. Now I'm an investor who just happens to play football.

Speaker A: Yep. Um, so for me the, the evolution is, isn't a one time thing of, you know, it being, um, something that occurred. And, and you know, it led me being a, from a curious angel investor to um, you know, trying to, to build something that was institutionalized. There was a evolution that took place. You know, started at Kleiner Perkins, uh, from there went over to Kaisermente, uh, spent a little time there. I had the opportunity, uh, to spend quite a bit of time with Ryan Neese over at Next Play Capital before they merged, um, into Next Legacy. Um, you know, I had a guy by the name of John Donovan, who really impressed upon me to leverage the access, the time, the resources, uh, to go and build out, uh, the competencies, uh, was my own capital. Um, you know, he introduced me to, uh, a then former managing director, Klauna Perkins. He introduced me to one of the partners over at Sequoia, Um, and there were three shops that I had the opportunity to, uh, spend time with from 2021 up until 2023. That really changed the game for me mentally, uh, during this time. And it was, um, Silver Lake, um, which was, you know, a really good, and I think one of, you know, one of the top tier, um, private equity firms on the planet, and then spent some time, um, shadowing Josh Kushner over at Thrive. Um, you know, I don't think everybody knows who Josh Kushner is, but, uh, a couple years ago, you know, was still in the building phases there at Thrive, and has done some, some exceptional things, uh, over the last couple of years, and then had the opportunity to scout us, according to. So for me, you know, allowing and having a firm that believed in me enough to give me a small pocket of capital and then allow me to go and deploy some of that capital. And there's a company called Foul AI, um, that I had the opportunity to invest in, while there's Sequoia, that has become a very well known AI, ah, company, um, and had the opportunity to make that bet a couple years ago. But it was changing the narrative of how institutions see athletes. That's really been the driving force. So when you ask the question of what was the evolution or what, what. What was, what was the thing that changed or what clicked? It's been an evolution, it's been time, it's been maturation. Because, you know, you couldn't have told me when I came into the league in 2012 that I will be thinking and doing and meeting and interacting with the people that I'm interacting with at this point in my life, and there's been a lot of trial and error, it's been a lot of discovery, um, there's been a lot of curiosity, just asking questions and being willing to ask questions that you really don't know the answer to. So I'm not classically trained, uh, to be, you know, uh, a venture or private equity investor, but I've had to go and build it with my own time, capital and resources and energy and relationships and networks to put myself in a position, uh, to be able to do this, you know, in an institutional fashion, uh, over the coming years and hopefully over the next 40 to 40 to 50 years of my life.

Speaker B: Amazing. So there's, there are a few ways we can take the conversation, and I feel like there's one that's kind of pulling at me, which is the availability of capital. So you talked about there are two things I think that are necessary to create a great investment opportunity. And among them are access. So you clearly had access to amazing people, like getting to do what you did with Kleiner and Sequoia and Josh, who I've known since he was a little kid. And it's like, it's unbelievable what he's built, but he's just a tremendously talented human that's not available to everybody. And then the other side of it is capital. And the, the, the, the interesting thing to me is when you look at like, so Josh just paid, Josh and Bob iger just paid $12 billion, 12 and a half billion dollars for the Lakers. Ten years ago that might have seemed unheard of. So there's been an, um, inflationary tailwind for professional sports, both at the ownership level and I would argue also at the, uh, at the, at the player level from a compensation perspective and especially now that the nil, like in college, you have players that are making millions of dollars. So what does that mean? That means that that money, that a lot of people have money. So then it becomes an access thing. One, do you think that more professional athletes are going to look to the investment community or the investment industry as the second or third act in their career? And then two, do you think that is a good thing? Or do you think that there's a risk of, hey, a bunch of people who don't really have the savvy that you do or the Larry does, are going to end up potentially risking it all and, and, and maybe having suboptimal outcomes. What do you think about that?

Speaker A: Uh, to, to your first question. Will there be more athletes, public figures that, that start to flock to the, um, financial and private equity industry? Yes, and I think it is needed. Um, to your second question, um, as gps, I mean, I think at every, every step within the capital structure and the capital stack, whether it's on the GP side, the LP side, whether it's family offices, whether it's um, institutional, um, allocators, whether it's, you know, being a gp, whether it's being a partner, whether it's being a intern, what have you, I think at every juncture there will be, and there should be, um, more professional athletes that are taking part and being able to participate in the financial and Private equity ecosystem. The reason I say that, and I say that because I used to beat this drum many years ago when the conversation around access to player data was coming into frame, meaning there was a lot of sensors that were put on the bodies of athletes, uh, across the genre, whether it was female sports, male sports, football, basketball, tennis, golf, what have you. And the conversation was around, who owns the data, does the league own the data or does the player own the data? And my thought process was the player owns the data. Well, if you work for a league, technically you can't really own that data. The league or the team owns that data. So my thought process was, well, I need to go invest personally in the entity that's doing that, which for me was a company called Whoop Technology.

Speaker B: You, you're an investor of Whoop?

Speaker A: Yeah, I did Whoop back in 2017.

Speaker B: Sick. But it came from so much of my data.

Speaker A: Yeah, but it came from the conversation of who actually owns the data.

Speaker B: Right. They do. Right.

Speaker A: So my thought press, well, I want to own a piece of the company that owns the data.

Speaker B: Genius.

Speaker A: So that has been a lot of, kind of this thesis that I've really been going after or this narrative that I've been trying to demystify is if an athlete is, if an athlete is participating in said entity or said conversation or in, in said ecosystem, why can't the athlete have the opportunity to participate? So with that being said, it makes it very easy for me to answer the question around, well, should an athlete or athletes, male or female, have the opportunity to participate in the private equity industry or the financial industry that is touching their sport every single day? Why not?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And how do you become an active, I'm gonna make sure to use that word again, an active participant in that ecosystem. So to your core, to your first question, should there be more athletes that are investing or taking part in the financial or private equity ecosystem? Yes. Will there be athletes, entertainers, celebrities that risk it all and may make mistakes in the private equity ecosystem? Yes. Because some people are not willing to take the same rigor and make the same sacrifices that they made to be the high profile and influential power players and power brokers that they were in their sport and take that, huh? Same type of rigor and bring that over into the private equity and financial industry. So to your question, yes and yes. And the caveat, uh, is are we as athletes willing to do the same type of work that we did to be high profile athletes and take that same type of rigor and bring that same type of rigor over into the private equity and, uh, financial industry.

Speaker B: Right. So that. And, and that's the big question. I mean, you see, like, there are a handful of firms that have what I'll call celebrity involvement from running the gamut from not really involved at all to very seriously involved. Like, for instance, uh, Mantis vc, Great portfolio run by the guys, uh, the, uh, chain smokers and their partners. And the chain smokers are into it. They do the work. Like you guys. You do the work. I'm more thinking, like, is it. And again, I don't know, this might be a rhetorical question because I don't like seeing, like, in the alcohol industry, where a celebrity slaps their name, uh, on a tequila brand and all of a sudden people run to buy it because they want the affiliation with that celebrity, even though that celebrity's affiliation might not be anything more than licensing their name. And I'm wondering if that. If that is dilutive to the industry. So I guess there's like, there's a multiple pieces of this. Like, there are. There. There are going to be people, um, I'm answering my own question. There are going to be people that are going to say, hey, for my second or third act, I like investing. I understand. I want to invest in what I know or I want to learn something new, and I'm going to approach it with the rigor of a Kelvin or a Larry. Then there are going to be people that say, hey, I could just license my name. I could just take a, uh, seat and see what happens. And then there are going to be people that just spray and pray. And I guess, I guess to your point, there's room for all of it, and I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

Speaker A: Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned Alex and Drew over there. Chain smokers. They've done a phenomenal job of building a phenomenal institution.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker A: Uh, they're in Mansons and have a deep level of respect for how they've gone about it and how they went about, uh, building out their platform. Um, until you're the way in which you've talked about the alcohol kind of concept or the branding type of concept. What I've found, and being in the private equity industry for some time now is institutions don't care who you are at the end of the day, um, whether you are part of the attention economy that is gaining significant traction, uh, in today's market, uh, whether you are investing in AI, um, and being able to participate in, um, the industrial revolution that we're taking and being a part of and looking at and seeing right now, or you're a professional athlete, like, they don't care. What they care about is, from a fiduciary's responsibility standpoint, are you a great steward of capital? Can you return capital? And can you return capital in a way that is aligned with the values of the people that we represent? Whether you're talking to an endowment, you're talking to a foundation, you're talking to a pension fund, you're talking to a family office, um, you're talking to a multifamily office, you're talking to an RRA shop, you're talking to any of these platforms that are rolling up financial advisory shops, what have you. Like, at the end of the day, they have a fiduciary responsibility. And many people, from what I've seen thus far, are still being very poignant about cutting through all that noise. Now, will there be people that slap their name on, um, the front door of a shop and say, hey, I'm involved when they're really not? Yes. And will you have others that are on the other side of the spectrum and are very deeply involved? Yes. And at the end of the day, what actually matters is, are you returning capital with the money that you've been given? Are you returning capital and are your values aligned? And I think that is the more poignant question than, you know, the frivolous conversation of. I. Well, there's a lot of celebrities and public figures that are coming into the investing world. Who should we give money to? And should we give money to them because they're, you know, they got millions of followers on IG and TikTok and Twitter and X, what have you. Like, at the end of the day, the fiduciaries really don't care because they have a fiduciary responsibility to the employees, the retirement funds, the firefighters, um, you know, I mean, it's so many other stakeholders that are involved that have nothing to do with, and nor do they care about the celebrity or the, um, attention that, you know, uh, somebody, um, garners that's coming from the outside world and coming into the private equity industry.

Speaker B: Interesting, interesting. Let's. Let's pivot a little bit. Let's talk about, uh, your shop. So you partnered up with. Well, actually, why don't I let you do it? Like you. How did, how did your partnership with Larry come about and where you guys currently. What, what's the. What's the. What's the focus? Is there a focus? I think I, I know the answer to this, but for people that are uninitiated.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure, man. So, uh, what's interesting is me and Larry were actually connected by a gentleman by the name of David Fiako. So before we ever played a down of football together, um, we were actually connected via text via David Fiaco. So Larry knew David through a series of relationships. I knew David through a series of relationships. We both had our own different, uh, relationship with David. And when I signed with the cardinals in 2020, um, he literally just slapped us in a group text and said, y' all need to know each other. Y' all are very aligned and think that there'd be some. Some interesting things that could take place here. Another connect to connectivity, uh, point was our masseuse, who both, um, Larry and I have been using for. For well over a decade. And, you know, we're both on the table, and I take calls on the t, Take meetings, and I'm working while on them. And, you know, for a couple of years. I started working with her in 2013, and I think he started working with her in, like, 05 06. And, you know, when I started working with her, she was like, hey, you really need to know this guy Larry Fitzgerald. And during that same time, she was telling Larry how you really need to know this guy, Kelvin beam. So from 2014, 20. Well, 2013 up until 2020, both of us bypassed on listening to our masseuse, who was telling us about each other on a consistent basis, and listened to Mr. Fiaco from the business world, uh, who connected us via text. And, man, from that time on, there was a different level of respect for one another because both of us had taken the time to really go and educate ourselves on how to do business like everybody else in the world does business. Checking emails, following up, supporting folks, uh, in the business sector, um, following through on what you're supposed to do, which, you know, we think is. Is. Is table stakes, table stakes, you know, um, and one thing led to another, and we just started doing deals together. We started doing diligence together. We started going to meetings together. Um, we started taking meetings together. Um, you know, I remember, you know, a number of times during that 2020, uh, the 2020 season, me, uh, and him would be taking diligence meetings in between lunches and in between meetings in 2020 when he was on the roster and when I was on the roster in Arizona.

Speaker B: But what. So what did that look like? Because you guys, again, like, Larry is, uh, a Hall of Famer. You are likely a future hall of Famer. Like the. The. The work that you guys had to put in on the football side. Howard, how did you make time? Like, how. How are you sourcing deals? Were people just like, oh, these guys, like, you talk about the attention economy, right? Like, these guys have access, or was it, hey, we're just involved. We got a signal network. You got crunch, basically. Like, what was. What was that like?

Speaker A: Well, the thing is, is first and foremost, uh, future hall of Famer myself. That's. That's a far stretch. Uh, that is a very eclectic. It's only 385 of those. Well, 387 of those guys. Uh, so I'm very weary that. That is a very, uh, elite group within a very elite class of people that play in the National Football League. But. But just wanted to make sure I set the record straight there.

Speaker B: Dare to dream, sir. Dare to dream.

Speaker A: But, you know, the thing is, is playing football, you still get to be a human, and a human still gets a lunch break. They still get to go home at night. They still get to have kids. They still get to go and go to the movies and grab ice cream with their kids. Like, it's like, sometimes I think people set us on these pedestals that we're not human. Like, we wake up and put our socks and shoes on and pants on just like everybody else. So, yes, we have a day that's filled with meetings and workouts and film study and recovery and all those things. All those things are very true. But at the same time, we still have 24 hours in a day, and we just had learned to use our 24 hours in a day a little differently than others. Um, and, you know, to your point about, like, how do you see the deals? You go out and hunt just like any other person who's classically trained has to go out and go source deals. You go and go network, you go into dinners, you go and go grab coffee, and you keep doing that over and over and over and over and over, and it compounds. And then you have the opportunity to invest in a couple great companies, and you happen to build relationships with a couple good people, and then you start building your own syndicate of who you want to invest with and how you want to invest with those folks over time. Um, the person that connected us, you know, Jason Schuman, had the opportunity to meet Jason back in 2016. Me and him still look at deals all the time together. Like, that is. That's my day one. I've slept on his couch, I've slept on his Couch in New York a couple times.

Speaker B: That's amazing. You know what's interesting about that, you, you just made a point that I think is, is bears repeating and is worth repeating, which is that you, you and Larry, you, you're involved in this sport which requires a ton of, of dedication and a ton of time. But like you said, you're, you're a human. And the rigor with which you apply to that sport, it. That's a skill, right? The discipline is a skill. And you can apply that. When you apply that, if you choose to apply that to another industry, in this case investing, it stands to reason that that rinse and repeat motion, you said, taking coffee meetings, doing the dill like you, it might be. This is a little bit of a, this is going to sound obvious to you, but this is a little bit of an epiphany for me. If you have that character, that quality of rigorous discipline, that it stands to reason that you could apply that to another industry and similarly excel. Especially when you have the access that you do to the people in your, in your orbit. Which makes, going back to the, the conversation about athletes being in the ecosystem, it's more, it's, it, it's like, oh, yeah, this is obvious. Of course they should, because if you're a successful athlete, chances are you are a very disciplined person. And to be a very good investor, to be an adroit investor, requires that type of rigorous discipline as well. So I, I just wanted to, I just wanted to point that out because that, that, that didn't occur to me before, but it seems obvious now that I say it.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, I think that's. Where to. Your earlier question was will people get burnt doing it as well? And I answered the question yes, because it still requires work. I'm not going to sit here and say that being a professional athlete doesn't require work or being a, uh, investor or fund manager doesn't require work. They both require work. Is the willingness to want to do that work. You know, Mike Tomlin talked about this all the time, is I want volunteers, not hostages. Volunteers means somebody that wants to do the work. A hostage. A hostage is somebody that's made to do something. So both Larry and I have made the decision, the choice to do something that is grandiose, that is ambitious, that is, you know, very hard all over again. And it goes back to the earlier comment that I made earlier around delayed gratification. We're willing to do that all over again now. Yes, we have cheat codes. Yes, we made money. Yes, we had significant career earnings. Yes, yes, and yes. But we also worked our tails off to go and do that on the football field. And now we're inspired, motivated, and intrinsically, like, obsessed with doing something hard all over again. And that's what's fun about it. That's the energy, that's the rigor that we now get to go and attack something and have purpose in doing it. You know, um, and this is more, you know, this is much, you know, bigger conversation is something that many athletes struggle with after they transition from the game is what is their next passion? What is that motivation? Yes. You have kids. Those are. That's. That's. You know, I love seeing my kids. I love taking them to school. Took them to school this morning. I'm picking them up from school this evening, you know, having movie night tonight. Like, I love doing the stuff with the kids, but there is something that I'm going after where I get to go and change the narrative of how institutional investors see athletes. That, for me, wakes me up, keeps me up at night, has me up early in the morning checking emails, has me up brainstorming and thinking through ways to get to pensions and connections and things that are. That are. That are going to be beneficial to our business. Spending time with founders and thinking about ways in which to help the founders that we choose to support, ways in which to help the VPs of sales as they're getting ready to launch different campaigns, when we're spending time with engineering teams, how to continue to build culture with these engineering teams. Like, those are the things that I find fascinating, along with making sure that I'm ready to move people when I need to move people. You know, like, both of them are amazing feats, and both of them require work, and both of them require both physical and mental strain. And I love the physical and mental strain that go with both of those things. Um, and I think for both Larry and I, um, it's been something that we have to continue to prove to those within the sports world that were willing to do things and have been willing to do things that others did not want to do and within the investing world and showing them that we're credible and we're capable of doing this for a very extended amount of time. Now we have to go and prove to them that which we're excited to go and do. You know, again, I go back to Mike Tomlin. Mike Tomlin will say this, you know, especially during the dog days of training camp, every day, you got to prove your love. And what we love about the investing in venture space right now is every day we get to have the opportunity to go and prove our love. And it's an invigorating time in our life to be able to do so.

Speaker B: So we don't have a ton of time left, but I feel like there's, there's so much more I want to talk about. How, how, how many portfolio companies do you guys have right now? And what's your average check size?

Speaker A: 31 portfolio companies. Average check size is 615,000.

Speaker B: That's a very specific number. Why 615?

Speaker A: Because we've been doing, uh, uh, we just released our data room today. So I've been in the numbers and in the weeds for the last couple of months, making sure that, uh, we have things well prepared for. I think it was the 800 emails that we sent out this morning.

Speaker B: Uh, no, but meaning, like, is there a reason the number is 600? 615 is a very specific number. Or is it that just happens to be the average, but it just happens

Speaker A: to be the average right now. I mean, we like to be able to do between 500 to, you know, a million two. Um, is, is where we like to be at. But I mean, when you've been squeezed and diluted things of that nature, that's just where the number happens to be right now.

Speaker B: And you guys are, you're, you're primarily seed investors.

Speaker A: Seed. And Series A is what we primarily,

Speaker B: primarily focus at and generalist?

Speaker A: Uh, no sir. Critical tech, enterprise software, fintech infrastructure. And we do one or two sports deals a year.

Speaker B: Well, so I would argue that's a fairly wide berth. I, I'd paint that as generalist. Wouldn't, wouldn't. Wouldn't you? Like, that's a, that, that feels like, like a lot of stuff could fit under that rubric.

Speaker A: No, it could, but there's also a lot of stuff that says also excluded. So, you know, we don't do any cpg. Uh, we don't do any D to C. Um, so for us, we felt that, that those parameters gave us the opportunity to build something that's enduring over the next couple of decades versus something that we can only do while we're playing football or while we're, you know, a couple of years extended away from, from the game of football. So when both Larry and I look at our angel portfolios, you know, especially as we were starting to put something institutional together, those four concepts were the four concepts that kept coming up. Critical tech, enterprise software, fintech infrastructure. And we would dabble in Sports.

Speaker B: How do you define critical tech?

Speaker A: When we think about critical tech, we think about anything that's such in national security, robotics, um, automation, cybersecurity, um, we've touched uh, energy and the technologies that's in and around energy. Uh, when you think about the entire AI stack right now you have the energy level, you have the infrastructure level, you have the application level, and then you have the consumer level. We love playing at the energy and infrastructure level. I don't think anybody right now, if you're trying to go in and invest in another model company to go and compete with anthropic and open AI, I think you've beaten your head up against the wall. So for us it's what are things at the infrastructure layer and what are things at the energy level that can power what's going on up the stack? And for us that has been something that we spent a lot of time in and it touches both the critical tech ecosystem and it touches that enterprise ecosystem for us. So for us we felt and have continued to feel, um, that these are uh, areas that we can invest in and can invest in over the next couple of decades because these were things that we were investing in with our own personal capital. So Larry started investing back in 2012, I started investing in 2015. And both of us, as we look at our portfolios and start to extrapolate information, that was the common themes that kept coming up. So before we even started the firm, those are areas that we continue to invest in. And as we think about the storytelling of doing this as angels now, starting an institution and how do you build an enduring institution, how do you continue stacking funds on top of funds. That is the way in which you do so. And you have to be able to do it with a story and going and doing something very clear and concise for a consistent amount of time. Going back to some of the same principles that I talked about earlier, we want to be able to do a couple things and do those couple things very, very well. And for us, as critical tech, although it is very wide ranging, critical tech, enterprise software, fintech, infrastructure with a touch of sports. And for us, we feel that that gives us enough to chew on on a consistent basis. And we've done a really good job of being able to spread enough companies within each of those. You know, we got a couple, you know, about 8 to 10 within critical, um, tech. You know, 8 to 10, uh, within um, uh, enterprise software. We have six companies in fintech and then uh, three in sports, which kind of averages out which is where we needed to be at, you know, for fun one, uh, because many people wanted to know, well, Kelvin, can you all go out and build an institutional track record? Y', all, you all have a great angel track record, but can you go and build an institutional track record? And to do so, you need to have some focus and some guardrails. And for us, those are just guardrails. To be able to go and build something now with the opportunity to go and build something much larger as we continue to scale.

Speaker B: Fantastic. All right, last question. So when you're playing career ends, is the plan to go all in on investing or is there a third act that nobody's expecting?

Speaker A: Uh, whatever the time is for me to transition from the National Football League, this is the only act, uh, that I will be participating in.

Speaker B: That is what I expect you to say. Kelvin Beacham, thank you so much. This was amazing. Uh, this is definitely going to be one of our highest rated, uh, podcast episodes ever. I am very confident of that. And, uh, we'll probably have to have you on again after the, uh, the, the conclusion of what will no doubt be a successful fundraise. Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Yes, sir, anytime. Thanks for having me. We want to hear from you. If you are a catalyst changing the tires industries or rewriting a rule book,

Speaker B: let us know@catalystambercreek.com and we might have

Speaker A: you on the show.