Huan Nguyen

**Rethinking Funding Sources in the Creative Industry** Director Jim Jarmusch expressed disappointment regarding Mubi's recent funding round by tech giant Sequoia, raising questions about the blurred lines between creativity and capital. As a General Partner at ElevenX Capital, I resonate with the concern that traditional funding sources may inadvertently shape artistic expression. How do we ensure that innovation in the arts remains authentic while navigating the complexities of venture funding? #investing #innovation #venturecapital #entrepreneurship

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It's not every day that two Aperiam portfolio companies - in one of 2025's hottest spaces, creative tech - decide that they are stronger together. Excited to share that Rembrand and Spaceback have merged to launch the industry’s first AI-powered creative platform for programmatic video - spanning CTV, digital video, and display. By combining Rembrand’s leadership in AI-driven virtual product placement with Spaceback’s ability to transform social content into high-performing ads, the new Rembrand platform enables brands to: - Instantly turn existing content into programmatic-ready ads - Augment creative with AI-based in-content placements - Activate seamlessly across all major DSPs Given that creative quality drives more than half of campaign impact, this is a big step forward for making ads more authentic, more relevant, and more effective. Proud to back both teams and excited to see what they build together. Congrats Omar, Casey and teams! Aperiam is super proud to be a backer of both. Link to more below.

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At the Brooklyn Tech Expo yesterday, Ramm.ai founder Alan Avidan emphasized the theme of 'AI Agents are everywhere.' A key point of discussion was the distinction between an agent and an Agentic system. The presence of agents is indeed notable, with WPP reporting 50,000 working on their behalf, raising questions about the cost and influence of such a workforce. A defining characteristic of an agent is its ability to act with agency and operate autonomously, unlike a bot that relies solely on prescribed LLMs or RAGs. However, a pressing question remains: how much autonomy does agentic AI truly possess without any human oversight? For instance, can it make purchases independently or comment on blog posts without human approval? What is its capacity to interact with other agents outside its ecosystem? Indeed in the case of fashion who decides what to put in your wardrobe for the new season? It appears there may be a spectrum of autonomy influenced by future governance and regulation. A critical question for businesses and society is how much independence should agentic structures be granted. While blockchain can serve as a verification mechanism to ensure data authenticity within an independent system, is this sufficient? Moreover, is it risky to embed such authority in a system that is challenging to modify? As AI agents become increasingly prevalent, the discussions surrounding their deployment are equally significant everywhere.

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Creator Marketing Infrastructure Keeps Scaling Devotion has raised $4M in Seed funding, with the round led by basecase capital and Will Ventures. Devotion is building AI tools that help brands discover, manage, and scale creator campaigns, shifting the model away from relying on a handful of large influencers toward coordinated ecosystems of smaller creators. The platform automates key parts of the process, including: • Creator discovery and matching • Campaign management • Performance tracking • Scaling campaigns across hundreds or thousands of creators My take: The creator economy is moving from individual influencer deals to creator infrastructure. Brands increasingly want distribution networks, not just a single celebrity post. Platforms like Devotion use AI to identify the right mix of creators and orchestrate campaigns at scale, turning creator marketing into a repeatable growth engine. In sports, this is especially relevant as leagues, teams, and sponsors look to tap into fan-creators and athlete-creators to reach younger audiences across platforms. #CreatorEconomy #SportsMarketing #SportsTech #InfluencerMarketing #SportsBusiness

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A 2-year-old AI adtech startup just acquired the U.S. operations of a 19-year-old company. Rembrand (an Aperiam portfolio company) has acquired Mirriad’s U.S. business, expanding its AI-powered product placement into premium Hollywood content. I think this kind of acquisition is a signal of what’s to come, which is a generational handoff in media and advertising. In this case, traditional VFX - manual, slow, and expensive - is being reimagined by generative AI. What once took months and a team of artists can now be done dynamically, programmatically, and with context-aware intelligence. With this move, Rembrand: - Absorbs deep media relationships and licensing rights (think Modern Family) - Can enter the world of high-end TV and film integrations - Unlocks new, personalized programmatic ad inventory Love Omar Tawakol’s example in the article: You’re watching a scene and see DoorDash. Someone across the globe sees Deliveroo. Same content, different context... rendered by Rembrand’s AI with physics-aware realism. Congrats to Rembrand (Omar, David Wiener, John Sedlak, Cory Treffiletti & co.). The future is AI-native and it’s unfolding quickly! Link in comments.

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He raised $5.3million in seed funding from ABSTRACT VENTURES LLP Susa Ventures, and then a $15million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz. Imagine if that $20million had been distributed between honest, ethical female-founded startups. #FundFemaleFounders Julie Bort TechCrunch https://lnkd.in/ey6eiGwF

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Brands don’t just buy media anymore. They are becoming media owners in their own right. But the process of connecting brands to branded entertainment IP is still fragmented, opaque, and inefficient. So we built IPX - The Content Marketplace to connect the dots. IPX is world's first branded entertainment marketplace where brands discover, connect with, and partner on premium entertainment IP. If you’re a brand, agency, media owner, or creator interested in shaping the next generation of brand-funded entertainment get in touch :-) ---- 👋 IPX is part of Agency House Ltd, a new agency running multiple complimentary but independent business verticals including Saudi Agency Network (part of Agency House). https://lnkd.in/gfgpn4bE

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Why do many venture studios stumble and how can you thrive? Discover insights on overcoming common pitfalls in this industry. #VentureStudios #Innovation https://buff.ly/m4TttQN

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Scaling With Boundaries: Consent-Based Growth at SX Fusion Link In Bio. Too many agencies treat creators like content machines—optimizing for growth at the cost of personal autonomy. At SX Fusion, we do things differently. Every strategy—whether it’s DM automation, PPV pricing, content cadence, or A/B testing—starts with one question: What does the creator actually want? Our model is built on consent-based growth. That means: No pressure to perform beyond your comfort zone Full transparency around monetization experiments Collaborative decisions on fan engagement style Respect for pacing, tone, and personal brand integrity Boundaries aren't obstacles—they're frameworks. And when creators feel safe, respected, and in control, the results speak for themselves: higher retention, deeper fan loyalty, and long-term success. We’re not just growing brands. We’re protecting people. #SXFusion #CreatorEconomy #OnlyFansManagement #DigitalEthics #ConsentCulture #CreatorWellness #ContentWithBoundaries #InfluencerStrategy #FanMonetization #SexualWellnessLeadership #RespectFirst #SustainableGrowth #CreatorSupport

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Closing out Season 2 of Embracing Erosion with Alena Morris, VP of Product Marketing at Kargo 🙌 Alena has spent 15+ years in ad tech and media, leading product marketing across the publisher, DSP, and SSP sides at PubMatic, Quantcast, and now Kargo. Few people have seen this ecosystem evolve as closely (or as practically) as she has. In this episode, we go deep on where ad tech is actually headed. How AI is unlocking creative intelligence - surfacing patterns, themes, and performance signals that were never accessible before, and turning creative into a true optimization lever. We also dig into: - The blurring lines between SSPs, DSPs, and retail media - Why competition in ad tech is more aggressive than ever - What it takes to lead product marketing and sales teams through real transformation and much more! A fitting way to wrap 20 episodes in Season 2... and 66 total since we started🤯 🎧 Full episode: https://lnkd.in/gwv7JhmW

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Every #VentureStudio GP knows some portfolio bets won’t hit. That's expected - and it's one of the reasons studios are such a powerful vehicle for innovation. And while a venture's failure might be what's visible to the outsider, what keeps them up at night isn’t failure at the venture level — it’s failure at the systemic level within the studio. One bad entity design. One IP misstep. One governance gap. That’s how studio operations fall apart. We break down how to spot (and fix) these cracks before they turn into fault lines in our latest paper, "The GP Dilemma" - DM me and I'll send you a copy!

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Yesterday we announced the launch of our new FirstPartyCapital Fund, a £50m fund backing early-stage innovators in AdTech, Media and Marketing, backed by some of the best operators, execs and corporate investors in our industry. Our community of industry insiders is our unfair advantage. It allows FirstPartyCapital to go beyond investing capital. Our portfolio companies get access to strategic and commercial partners, advisors and pre-baked playbooks to accelerate their growth. In that vein, we’re really pleased to announce that Multilocal the pioneering curation company, have invested with FirstPartyCapital. In addition to financial backing, Multilocal will impart its deep technical, operational, and industry expertise to FPC-backed ventures. Through shared intelligence, collaborative product alignment, and selective strategic partnerships, Multilocal aims to actively support the next generation of start-up infrastructure powering smarter digital advertising. 🔗 Press Release Link in comments. We’re excited to work with James Leaver, Robin Bootle, Fern Potter and team. Curation is transforming the speed of innovation and go-to-market for emerging companies, providing more flexibility to leverage proprietary signals in the pursuit of outcomes for advertisers. As an existing partner to many of our Fund 1 portfolio companies, I’m expecting big things from this partnership. If you want to talk more about the ecosystem we’re building, reach out to our venture studio team FirstPartyStudio, Dave Barr Laura Gaffney Nick Fletcher.

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Over the last few posts, I’ve talked about two sides of ticket resale: the numbers and the people. The economics show that resale, when it works well, can expand access, create flexibility, and deliver real value. The stories remind us those “transactions” are actually parents, kids, friends, and core memories in the making. For this last part of the trilogy, I keep coming back to one question: if resale is here to stay, what does a healthier ecosystem look like? First, we need to be honest about where the tension lives. Fans feel priced out. Venues and promoters face rising costs and pressure from major ticketing platforms. Brokers and marketplaces take on risk, provide liquidity, and fill seats that might otherwise sit empty—while often being painted as the villain. A lot of that anger centers on tickets being sold “over face value.” Here’s the reality, face value is often a starting guess, not the true market price. When demand far exceeds supply, small venue, hot artist, rivalry game, once-in-a-lifetime tour, prices rise. When demand is softer, prices fall, sometimes well below face. Brokers live in that spread. They buy inventory before they know how it will play out. Sometimes they make money, sometimes they lose, sometimes they discount heavily just to get seats filled. Many brokers do more than chase profit. I’ve seen brokers donate tickets to charity, partner with local schools and youth programs, and give seats away to families who could never afford them. Those stories don’t make headlines, but they’re real. Resale isn’t “good” or “bad” by default. It’s a tool. The question is: how do we use it responsibly? Transparency – Clear face value, clear fees, clear indication of primary vs resale. If we want trust, we earn it with clarity. Alignment – Primary, secondary, venues, teams, artists, and marketplaces working toward a shared vision. Full buildings, sustainable pricing, and fans who feel respected enough to come back year after year. Accountability – Be tough on bots, fraud, and deceptive practices—without assuming that every broker or every resale buyer is the problem. Primary platforms must own their role in pricing and fee structures too. I sit in this world every day, working with the people and technologies behind the scenes. I’ve seen resale give families a shot at experiences they thought they’d never afford. I’ve also seen opaque pricing leave fans frustrated. Both realities are true. We don’t need a perfect system. We need an honest one. #LiveEntertainment #Ticketing #TicketResale #SecondaryMarket #FansFirst #EventTech #Transparency #SportsBusiness #MusicIndustry

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“13 Best Venture Studios for Startups in 2025” — great title, I was excited to dig in... unfortunately (but not surprisingly) 8 of them *are NOT* Venture Studios. Pitchdrive got it wrong — so let me make it right. What’s frustrating is that the definition in the article is actually spot on: ✅ Studios co-found and fund new ventures with domain experts (EIRs) ✅ They deploy internal talent until the venture can hire its own team ✅ They de-risk the process — 84% of studio-born startups reach Seed vs. 10% of traditional ones And yet… most of the list? Accelerators, incubators, or funds. Techstars, Y Combinator, 500 Global, STATION F, Plug and Play Tech Center, and Point Nine Capital. Antler is ... somewhere in the middle but runs more of an accelerator-style program which blurs the definition of a true Venture Studio (however, they work with founders from Day 1 and it's an excellent program). Only four on the list are true Venture Studios: Hexa (formerly eFounders), Rocket Internet SE, Entrepreneurs First, and Idealab. (StarApps might qualify — still checking.) If even expert-researched articles can’t get the basics right, how are founders or investors supposed to? I'm going to keep calling this out until it stops happening 🤷‍♀️ Clarity matters — the Studio model deserves better than buzzword confusion. 📰 The Startup Studio newsletter drops tomorrow. I ONLY cover actual Studios — every single one vetted, researched, and verified. If you want the real story behind the model everyone’s suddenly talking about, subscribe: https://lnkd.in/dpQJk8RP #VentureStudio #StartupStudio #VentureBuilding #Startups #EIR #Entrepreneurship #Founders #Studio #Accelerator #VC

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Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is seeking to raise about $20 billion in what will be the largest fund in its history, to capitalize on global investors' interest in backing U.S. artificial intelligence companies. https://lnkd.in/gaDH39Xc #VentureCapital #Startups #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AndreessenHorowitz #a16z

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Videos are becoming the new start-up pitch decks. This FT piece looks at how founders are using short, sharp trailers to test interest and earn investor attention long before a traditional deck appears. It feels very close to what I weare seeing in private markets too: investors want to see the team, the product and the strategy brought to life, not just read about them. At 52 Partners we are seeing that same shift on the GP and portfolio side – using video for fundraises, deal stories and value creation, rather than relying solely on slideware. Well worth a read if you are rethinking how you communicate with investors and stakeholders:

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Andreessen Horowitz being more a media firm than VC right now is the juice that will make or break Cluely. A16z has mastered the art of media + company building. The firm has pivoted the fastest to take advantage of the podcasting, Youtube, Tiktok era and have supercharged ordinary businesses to great success and household recognition. Obviously they are picking the founders who are brand building and distribution geniuses. But they then supercharge those people by: -giving them access to their media/PR blueprint, honed after years of experience -providing access to the best media and PR minds on the planet - whether in-house people like Margit Wennmachers, Abby Green or working with their tier 1 group of advisers and outside firms -providing access to celebrities through their Cultural Leadership Fund -celebrity of Mark Andreesssen (goes on Joe Rogan twice, is there a more popular VC)? Here’s how Andreessen supercharged some other businesses from the media side. Whether these companies succeeded or failed, they were all over the new and household name in the tech world: -Clubhouse: blew up after a16z seeded it with Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart and brought on celebrities like Elon Musk and ran 10+ shows themselves. -OpenSea: went from niche crypto nerd site to the face of NFTs, thanks to a16z’s media strategy, podcast tours, celebrity investors, and “Why NFTs matter” blogs and tweets from Chris Dixon. -Flow (Adam Neumann) – a PR nightmare on paper. a16z defused it before it even began. Marc Andreessen dropped a blog reframing Neumann as a misunderstood visionary tackling America’s housing crisis. On paper, Cluely x a16z is a perfect match. Time will tell if Andreessen’s media influence will boost Cluely’s marketing and push them to success.

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🚨Someone grab me a tissue for my eyes because….it's official. HuCapital has launched 1:1, peer group and prompted matching for creatives and professionals who want to build IRL!! Not familiar with who we are? HuCapital is an AI social platform built for entrepreneurial creatives and professionals across the New York Metropolitan area. Powered by our AI engine Huey, we curate 1:1, peer group, and prompted matches designed to transform online connections into IRL meetups and collaboration. AI has fundamentally changed the way we work, and the most innovative projects and businesses of our time will be built by people who know how to use it together. HuCapital brings creatives and professionals together to unite their unique skillsets, collaborate on what is next, and build a better future. Who better than us to build this? No one! And we've got the proof. All of this before our Beta launch: 🟢 3 years of sold out IRL NYC impacting 4,000+ attendees 🟢 A community (list serve) of 10,000+ creatives and professionals 🟢 Generated six figures in event revenue 🟢 Successfully crowdfunded $26,000 from our community to build our MVP 🟢 Deployed approximately $10,000 in non-dilutive grant funding to early stage entrepreneurs 🟢 Landed sponsorships with companies including Equitable, Northwestern Mutual, Chase and Toast 🟢 Launched to 700+ private beta users See yourself benefitting from this product built on passion for community-building? Request beta access via our site hucapital.co. Want access right now? DM me for the invite code and private link. Thank you so much to everyone who has been and is currently involved with the growth and evolution of HuCapital. Your contributions have helped us get to this very moment that we’ve all been looking forward to! Miles Ryan, Magic Washington, Michael A, Johnnie Gonzalez, Mikhail Karepov, Kayisha Ulysse, Ariana Warner, Aloaye Tisor, MPA, Queenie Suprena, MBA, Nicole Perez, Kojo Dadzie, MPA, Kojo Dansoh,M.S, Patrick Pierre-Louis, Emilia Hansson, Norhan Ahmed, Nandita Malhotra, Smridhi Gupta, Amy Zhang, Geraldin Noemis Diaz, Tracey Kasongo, Guylynne Joseph, Shianne Wisdom, Tahliyah Browne, Nekwan Luke, Alexa Shippy, Biti N.

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🚀 The Future of TV is AI—And New Jersey is Building It The entertainment industry is at a tipping point. With Amazon-backed Fable Studio now using AI to generate entire 22-minute TV episodes, we're witnessing the birth of a new era in content creation. And here in New Jersey, we're about to make history. 🎬 AI Meets Hollywood East Fable's Showrunner system proves what's possible: ✔ Instant episode generation from simple prompts ✔ Personalized storytelling where viewers become characters ✔ AI "actors" that evolve over time This breakthrough couldn't come at a better moment for NJ's booming film industry. 🌟 New Jersey's Perfect Storm With best-in-class tax credits (including the NJ Digital Media & Film Tax Credit), strategic East Coast location, and expanding production infrastructure, our state is primed to lead the AI-content revolution. Now imagine pairing these advantages with cutting-edge AI tools to create: ✅ Faster productions at competitive budgets ✅ Hyper-local content with global appeal ✅ Next-gen storytelling that leverages both human creativity and AI efficiency 🏗️ Keystone Studios: NJ's Future Home for Innovation Keystone Studios represents New Jersey's bold next step: a next-generation production facility that will embrace AI as a creative partner while preserving the human magic of storytelling. We're committed to: ✔ Pioneering responsible AI integration in film/TV production ✔ Training NJ talent in these transformative tools ✔ Attracting productions that want to leverage both tax incentives and tech innovation 🚀 Why This Matters Now The studios that thrive in the coming decade will be those that: ✨ Combine AI efficiency with human artistry ✨ Capitalize on emerging tax credit opportunities ✨ Build infrastructure for next-gen production New Jersey has all the ingredients to become the Silicon Valley of AI-assisted content creation—and Keystone Studios will be at the forefront of this movement. To my fellow global creators, producers, and innovators: The future isn't just coming—we're building it here. Let's connect and make it happen. 👇 #NJFilm #AI #KeystoneStudios #FutureOfProduction P.S. When historians look back at the AI-content revolution, will they point to New Jersey as ground zero? With the right vision and partnerships—absolutely. 🎥🤖

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