Erik Hovanec

Last night, we closed Soundcore Capital Partners Fund III at $450 million — oversubscribed at the hard cap. 🚀 117 LPs. 12 countries. I am deeply grateful to every Fund III LP for the trust you placed in our team and our strategy. 11 years ago, I started Soundcore with a simple conviction: that small business owners in non‑discretionary service sectors deserved a respectful, operationally intensive partner — and that PE could be built the right way, from the ground up. There was no platform to leverage. No built‑in capital base to hire the talent this strategy demands. From the start, what existed was an unwavering conviction in the mission, a relentless work ethic, and a commitment to building this firm—step by step—into the very best in PE. Using the formula I created, we have built market‑leading platforms in highly fragmented, essential service sectors — long before it was fashionable to do so. Like any long journey, Soundcore was tested in ways I could not have anticipated. There were moments when staying the course was difficult and uncomfortable. What mattered most during those periods was resilience and integrity. Over the past several years, I spent countless hours on the road meeting with existing and prospective LPs — engaging in deep DD and thoughtful partnership discussions. The scrutiny made Soundcore better. More disciplined. More durable. At the same time, our team remained intensely focused on the portfolio and employees driving daily performance. Operationally, Fund III already reflects one of the most focused and active periods in our firm’s history: 👉 Five platforms built with over $540 million in revenue 👉 28 acquisitions completed 👉 17 acquisitions in 2025 alone — our most active year to date 👉 Meaningful expansion of our team, with deeper operational and investment expertise The LPs in Fund III were discerning and did the work. They conducted extensive DD and evaluated us based on data and firsthand reference work. We are grateful for their rigor and for their partnership mindset. We also diversified and strengthened our global LP base across public and corporate pensions, endowments, foundations, consultants, insurance companies, single family offices, fund of funds, multi-family offices, wealth managers, asset managers, and ultra-high net worth investors. We do not take that responsibility lightly. The close of Fund III is not a finish line — it is a mandate. Our focus remains singular: disciplined execution, operational value creation, and delivering performance consistent with the trust placed in us. To our LPs — thank you for your rigor, candor, and partnership. To the Soundcore team — your professionalism, resilience, and unwavering confidence in what we are building made this possible and I share this achievement with you. To my wife — thank you for the strength, patience, and support that made this journey possible. We move forward focused, proud, aligned, and accountable. Onward.

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I am excited to announce that Shine Capital has led AudioShake’s $14M Series A. Our investment represents the culmination of two years of searching for a company that will define the next generation of audio. Since 2023, we have been asking ourselves the question, "What technology will be used pervasively across the totality of the audio landscape?" Then we met Jessica Powell and Luke Miner, founders of AudioShake. AudioShake makes a suite of AI-powered tools for processing audio that include stem-splitting, voice isolation, speaker separation, and more. These primitives are critical infrastructure for almost any task involving audio, as evidenced by the breadth of use cases that the company serves. The Walt Disney Company and Downtown Music use AudioShake to make tracks available for sync licensing. Film studios and post-production houses use AudioShake to clean up sound from microphones to prevent re-recordings and manual audio engineering. Sports leagues and broadcasters use AudioShake to separate stadium noise from commentary to enable clean captioning and crisper audio. And Big Tech and frontier labs use AudioShake to prepare their audio data for multimodal AI training. We believe that audio will be the most important medium in the age of AI, defined by explosive growth across three categories that are even better with AudioShake: 1) Audio-as-AI-Interface: For the first time, people can perform complex compute operations using their voice. Conversing with AI will propel voice assistant usage well beyond its current ~50% adoption. 2) Explosion of Content: The rate at which user-generated content is made continues to accelerate, which will be further amplified by the possibility of AI-generated content. Audio is a superset of video — nearly every video uses sound to convey meaning, message, or emotion. 3) Voice Agents for Business: More than $100B of phone labor is performed annually in the United States. While some of it sits in call centers, most of it is fractional work. Businesses across finance, healthcare, and beyond have rapidly adopted phone agents. We are fortunate to partner with Jessica Powell and Luke Miner, passionate entrepreneurs and audiophiles dedicated to making audio as easy to work with as images or text. Audio contains vast amounts of information and creative possibility, and AudioShake will help unlock it. Thank you to our friends at Indicator Ventures for connecting us to Jessica. We are thrilled to support the AudioShake team with them, alongside Origin Ventures, Thomson Reuters, Precursor Ventures and Background Capital.

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The future of venture studios isn’t just about launching startups—it’s about redesigning how we build, fund, and scale impactful companies from day one. This thoughtful piece by Ryan Larcom, the Managing Partner of Alloy Partners (Formerly High Alpha Innovation), outlines where the model is headed: from cookie-cutter incubators to focused, capital-efficient studios that align deeply with market needs, deep focus, technical expertise, and business rigor. At 10XBeta, we’re living this evolution in real time. Our work is anchored in problem-led innovation, engineering-first execution, and a strong commitment to de-risking ventures early. We’re not just backing ideas—we’re building real, regulated, medtech and healthtech companies designed to survive the valley of death and scale meaningfully. Huge thanks to Sarah Adams Anderson and Francisco Gomez of Vault Fund for your belief in this model and your support as we take bold bets on the future. It was really wonderful to see my former colleagues Justin Dangel, Will Gray, CFA, TianYu (TY) Wong, and Michael Basch. #VentureStudios #MedTech #VentureCapital #HealthInnovation #FutureOfVenture #StartupEcosystem

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What could the future of fund administration look like with a tech-forward approach and the application of AI? Fresh off of a $130M Series D round led by Ribbit Capital, Juniper Square CEO and Co-Founder Alex Robinson came on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share fascinating and thought-provoking perspectives on the future of fund administration and why post-investment processes need a combination of both automation and human touch. Alex and I covered both the current and future states of fund administration and how GPs can navigate a new world of tech and finance. We discussed: ➡️ Why Alex started Juniper Square and how his two entrepreneurial endeavors has informed how he’s built the firm. ➡️ The problem Alex set out to solve by building Juniper Square. ➡️ After dealing with FedEx’s to make investments, how he set out to build an investor experience that was digital. ➡️ How AI will impact fund admin. ➡️ Why every GP should have an AI agent according to Alex. ➡️ Why Juniper Square decided to move from a technology firm to add fund administration capabilities in-house. ➡️ Does AI benefit larger firms or smaller firms more? Thanks Alex Robinson for sharing your wisdom and unique perspectives on private markets, fund administration, and AI. Thanks Juniper Square for your support of Alt Goes Mainstream. https://lnkd.in/eetYyce2

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**Fubo and Hulu Live TV: A Strategic Fusion in Live Sports Streaming** The recent merger of Fubo with Hulu Live TV reflects a growing trend in the streaming industry—converging platforms to enhance viewer experience and broaden content offerings. As Fubo integrates its live sports features into a more comprehensive service, we at ElevenX Capital see the potential for this model to reshape competitive dynamics within the sector. How do you think this merger will impact subscriber growth and market positioning for both brands? #investing #innovation #venturecapital #entrepreneurship

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Project Vend reads less like a capability story and more like a governability story. Phase two improved because institutional scaffolding (tools, procedures, role separation) reduced predictable judgment failures—persuasion, compliance blind spots, boundary confusion, values drift. The board-level question isn’t “can an agent run a business?” but “what governance primitives must exist before we delegate authority.” Until incentives, escalation rights, and refusal boundaries are structurally enforced—not merely prompted—agents remain high-performing managers, not autonomous executives.

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🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg

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I spoke with Christien Louviere of BDE Capital about his journey from a $330mm exit to becoming an independent sponsor. Christien shared excellent insights for folks looking to partner with business owners, rather than buy sellers out completely. Below are a few of the topics we covered: - Why he moved from “zero-to-one” startups to a buy-then-build strategy - How Christien's background shaped a focus on growth vs. cost-cutting - Why 20–40% rolled equity is central to his deal structures—and how it builds trust with sellers - Using scenario analysis with AI tools to evaluate management teams and uncover hidden key-person risks - How to identify when a $3–5M EBITDA company truly has a middle management layer—or is still founder-reliant For anyone investing in or buying small businesses, Christien’s approach provides a fresh lens on growth, alignment, and deal structuring. 🎥 Watch the full interview here → https://lnkd.in/ekfkaiej 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e86Agx6V

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Camber Creek led the $3.7 million Seed round for TwinKnowledge, which is tackling an important problem in the built environment. Construction projects get delayed and rework is required because of discrepancies across construction documents, submittals, requests for information, design, and other plans. TwinKnowledge’s AI Agents absorb structured and unstructured project data, surfacing and preventing conflicts before the work begins. We’re excited about our partnership with CEO Ivan Panushev and his team. #construction #AEC #AI #technology https://ow.ly/mBYX50VtaVG

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Starboard Built Big Stake in BILL Holdings, Plans to Nominate Directors "Activist investor Starboard Value owns an 8.5% stake in BILL Holdings and intends to run a boardroom challenge to push for changes at the financial automation software company that serves small and midsize businesses around the world, it said in a filing on Thursday. "BILL Holdings, which has a market value of nearly $5 billion and sees more than 1% of U.S. gross domestic product flow through its platform, saw its stock price lose nearly half of its value since January." #corporategovernance #boardsofdirectors #activistinvesting #shareholderactivism #governancearbitrage https://lnkd.in/gQhi_A5b

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Big milestone for Firmable. We’ve raised $14m Series A led by Airtree. Sales has moved through a few big waves: intuition-led, CRM-led, data-led. We’re now entering the next one – intelligence-led sales. The opportunity isn’t just better data. It’s turning that data into clear direction and action, without adding more work for sales teams. That’s what we’re building at Firmable: a foundation of trusted external data, layered with intelligence that helps sellers know who to focus on and when. Led by Airtree, this round supports our expansion across Asia and into the US – and accelerates the build-out of AI agents that take the admin work off sales teams so they can focus on what they do best. Proud of the team, grateful to our customers and investors. We’re just getting started. Read the exclusive in the AFR. https://lnkd.in/gr66uknb Leigh Jasper | Tara Salmon | Karthik Venkatasubramanian| Chester Thompson| Chath Widanapathirana

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Excited to finally share what we’ve been building over the past year. Today we’re announcing the first investment from ARKITEKT EQUITY. Over the past year, we have been closely observing the structural shifts occurring within semiconductor ecosystems. As manufacturing systems become more complex, the infrastructure enabling those systems becomes increasingly strategic. These environments demand operational clarity, coordination, and long-term alignment. ARKITEKT was built around a simple idea: durable value is created where frontier technology meets pragmatic execution. Our investment in BBTech reflects this conviction. This is just the beginning of what we aim to build at ARKITEKT EQUITY. Stay tuned! https://lnkd.in/g_pQiBZY

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🎙️ New Podcast Episode: A Deep Dive into the Ad Tech Ecosystem with Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify Really enjoyed this one! We had the pleasure of sitting down with Mark Zagorski for a wide-ranging conversation covering his incredible journey including trade sales, a merger, an IPO, and major acquisitions of comapnies like OpenSlate, Scibids, and Rockerbox. From the evolution of the LumaScape to the convergence of the buy and sell sides, Mark breaks down how the ad tech ecosystem is transforming — and how DoubleVerify is moving well beyond brand safety into measurement, pre-bid optimisation, and the emergence of what we like to call Super Signal Aggregators (SSAs). We also talked about DV’s strategic investment into FirstPartyCapital — their first-ever VC fund investment — and why they see it as a way to fuel innovation, access early-stage tech, and deepen partnerships with the next generation of ad tech pioneers. 👇 Link in the comments. #AdTech #MarTech #VentureCapital #Measurement #Optimisation #SSA #DoubleVerify #FirstPartyCapital #FPCpodcast

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From the beginning, we believed Lumana was building much more than a smarter surveillance tool. Lumana's platform reflects the next evolution in video intelligence — physical AI. This approach enables systems to go beyond basic detection capabilities to understanding context, infer intent, and deliver real-time insights that improve safety and operations at scale. Further, we decided to take the longer and more difficult direction of building a whole new generation and fully featured Video Management System (VMS). With the company’s $40M Series A, led by our friend Peter Wagner from Wing Venture Capital and our seed partners from SCAPITALVC, we’re doubling down on a platform that’s already proving its value in the real world. We are serving now close to ten thousands enterprise cameras in production! Founders like Sagi Ben Moshe bring a rare mix of vision and execution to the table. From our earliest conversations as an EIR at Norwest, it was clear that Lumana had the potential to reshape how organizations use video. Congratulations to the team on this well-deserved milestone. https://lnkd.in/gwHdaGPZ

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Clarence Chio and Kao ZC are the prototype of AI practioners you want to back. Builders who think in first principles, relentless about scaling efficiently, and as G2M-savvy as they are technical. Coverbase is building the autonomous intelligence layer for modern procurement, and we’re over the moon to support their next chapter. TPRM & procurement are easy functions to overlook, but they actually represents a key bottleneck, especially for regulated organizations. An efficient onboarding process isn't merely about assessing risk, it's about streamlining a critical path that allows a business to achieve its goals. Ensuring resilience and unlocking speed. How does a company bring in more AI use cases? How does it accelerate its partnership strategy? How can it improve decision-making cycle times in a dynamic environment? Coverbase is where I'd start!

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Got to have a great call today with Jonathan Hakakian. Jonathan is the co-founder and Managing Partner of SoundBoard Venture Fund - an early-stage fund investing primarily outside major coastal hubs. They've built a portfolio of 40+ companies across the US in underserved geo., with notable exits including Jump (acquired by Uber). We didn't talk enough about what he's doing - because we got wonderfully sidetracked. We talked about The Fulcrum; Work. About Iranian food. About food as both a love language and a window into culture. About learning and the 2nd part of life journey... And then we got into something I care deeply about: how to fund the companies that aren't "VC backable" by traditional standards but are absolutely worth backing. Not every great business fits the venture mold. Jonathan gets that. SoundBoard is built on character over skill, close founder relationships, and creative structures that meet founders where they are. That's my kind of investor. Heidi Knoblauch you should be in this conversation. I think you'd connect on much of this part! I'm excited by Jonathan's approach. His thoughtfulness. The way he shows up for founders outside the usual corridors. Ive learned quite a bit from him. Very much looking forward to our next call - and to his next fund. This is how ecosystems get built. One good conversation at a time.

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📣 When we first partnered with Evan Klein and the Zaelab team in 2023, we saw a clear opportunity: build the go-to partner for digital transformation across the manufacturing and distribution landscape. Zaelab has made incredible progress, accelerating growth and efficiency for its clients, expanding key relationships with platforms like Shopify and Logik.ai (now ServiceNow), and extending capabilities with the acquisition of Trellis. Now, we are excited to announce that Zaelab has merged with TMG, a company with deep manufacturing roots and a standout #Shopify B2B product, Fuse. Together with Zaelab’s own Portul Shopify solution, the combined platform is now the clear leader in the Shopify B2B space. With 350+ experts across commerce and CRM, Zaelab is helping clients drive digital transformation by leveraging modern platforms like Shopify and ServiceNow. The combined company does this through providing enterprises with the vision, scale, and execution capabilities that are best in class. Huge congrats to the teams at Zaelab and TMG! Press release in comments 👇

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