Ashton Kutcher exits Sound Ventures to launch new VC firm with Morgan Beller

Ashton Kutcher is stepping away from Sound Ventures, the firm he co-founded with Guy Oseary 11 years ago, to start a separate VC fund, the Wall Street Journal reported. The actor and investor's new firm is being co-founded with Morgan Beller, who until recently was a general partner at seed-focused VC outfit NFX and previously co-led cryptocurrency project Libra at Meta. Beller also spent nearly three years as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

TechCrunch had separately heard that Kutcher was preparing to leave; the WSJ's report confirms it and adds new detail on his plans with Beller. The name of the new firm hasn't been made public yet. Kutcher's exit doesn't appear to be a sign of trouble at Sound Ventures — investors often leave firms that are underperforming, but that's not the case here.

The firm, which has backed companies like Brex and Gusto, was also an early investor in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Fei-Fei Li's World Labs. The split is notable for what it signals about where AI money is heading next: Sound built its reputation on concentrated, high-conviction bets in category-leading AI labs, while Kutcher's new fund appears to be chasing the layer underneath those companies — the infrastructure and energy that power them. "He and his fund consistently make it onto [my] rankings of top unicorn investors.

An interesting case!" Stanford finance professor Ilya Strebulaev, who tracks top-performing VCs, wrote on X. The actor has known OpenAI's Sam Altman since Altman founded Loopt — years before the launch of the ChatGPT maker. Kutcher's departure was partly due to different views on which startup stages to target for investments, with Sound leaning toward backing companies that are already more established, rather than betting on very early-stage startups, according to WSJ.

Kutcher and Beller are focused on making early-stage investments in AI infrastructure, energy, and deep tech startups — startups built around hard science and engineering breakthroughs rather than software alone. Despite leaving Sound Ventures, Kutcher will continue to serve as an adviser to the firm. Meanwhile, Oseary and Sound general partner Effie Epstein will advise Kutcher and Beller's new firm.

Why this matters: Ashton Kutcher's departure from Sound Ventures and his new venture with Morgan Beller reflect a shifting focus in AI investments. By targeting early-stage AI infrastructure and deep tech startups, Kutcher's new fund is poised to support the foundational layers of the AI ecosystem, which will be crucial for the long-term success of more established AI companies. This move also indicates that investors are looking beyond the current crop of AI leaders and exploring opportunities in the underlying technologies that power them.