USC Grad Students Launch Investment Fund

Bringing a Vision of Democratized Investing to Reality

Creating an Investment Fund

It is just over a year ago at the Forbes’s 30 Under 30 Conference in Detroit Michigan.

The world looks very different. The coronavirus pandemic has yet to rear its head in the United States.

Two USC MBA students, Jonathan Myers and Gabe Bensimon, seek to immerse themselves in everything the event has to offer. The weekend is packed with panel discussions, happy hours, and a floor filled with start-up booths.

On the plane ride back to Los Angeles, the two thought “How do we invest in these start-ups? How can we engage the community and create this environment and excitement with USC and Southern California?”. Both were Entrepreneurs and had desire to bring community and collaboration to the LA start-up ecosystem.

Then the eureka moment. Jonathan asked:

“What if we recruited our classmates and pooled our resources? Together the MBA class has the skills, effort, and network to give a real offering to early-stage entrepreneurs.’”

Back in LA, they recruited a small group of friends to start workshopping the idea. The two recruited three more members: Wes Goodson, Siavosh Asadi, and Chris Robinette. The ideas started small. Early ideas were a pitch competition through the school. Then an incubator model was also tossed around. Ultimately, the group settled on simplicity and created their own fund.

Inspired by the USC Marshall Venture Fund and Stanford’s StartX the group wanted a vehicle to make real investments in start-ups while providing a vibrant community and deep collaboration.

But before the idea could get up and running, March came around and Coronavirus reared its ugly head. Gabe:

“With a deadly pandemic, an economic crash, and a ton of uncertainty, we felt we couldn’t start asking people to cough up their own cash and sign up for a major time commitment… we knew it wouldn’t be received well.”

They decided to go into hibernation mode.

In the meantime, they started talking to professors at USC for advice. Then met with attorneys on how they could legally bring this type of organization to life. They met weekly for months iterating on the idea until finally settling on a structure. A wholly owned investment fund where each co-founder contributed their own capital and expertise freely. No limited partners, no external pressure, simply the desire to fund awesome new companies.

“We really sought to lower the barrier to participate in investing. We did that by being a cohesive organization and being democratic in nature” — Jonathan Myers

By November the group had a sense of what the fund was going to look like. They put out a flyer in Marshall’s clubs for an informational meeting to gauge interest.

To everyone’s amazement, over seventy people showed up to the first meeting and then showed up again for the second meeting. After months of work the idea had traction.

Democratized Start-Up Investing

One year later we are proud to announce the Silicon Beach Investment group.

We are a democratized seed investment fund providing Founders capital, collaboration, and community.

Together we dig deep on each investment and entrepreneur. Our 74 members bring a diverse set of perspectives to every opportunity and extensive support to every investment.

Our members have experience from over forty industries. From management consulting to venture capital to tech start-ups and serial entrepreneurs. 65% of our members have a Master’s degree or higher.

We seek to be early investors in Southern California’s most innovate start-ups.

We provide engaged equity to make those early dollars count for more.

Have an idea? Let us know here. Checks range from $25-$50k.