BAM Ventures Is Raising a $50 Million Fund III
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
BAM Ventures, the early-stage, consumer-focused fund co-founded by corporate lawyer-turned-L.A. serial entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist Brian Lee, has filed paperwork with the SEC indicating that it is in the process of raising a third fund with $50 million in dry power.
Lee and Shamin Rostami Walsh, BAM's managing director, declined to comment on the offering. Companies are barred by SEC regulations from "general solicitation" while they are raising capital, which includes speaking to the media.
The $50 million fund would be a considerable step up from BAM's $20 Fund II and $6 million Fund I, which provided early backing for buzzy consumer startups such as the video game maker Scopely and the trendy luggage direct-to-consumer company, Away.
But no investment has been more profitable than the firm's reported $150,000 pre-seed check to Honey, which turned into $45 million after the coupon startup was bought by Paypal for $4 billion last year. It is the sort of return VCs dream about and Honey's founders were turned down many times until they met Lee, who told dot.LA earlier this year that he invested after getting a "vibe" from co-founders George Ruan and Ryan Hudson at a panel where they were speaking.
"They knew exactly what they were building, and how they were going to get there," Lee said. "It gave us a lot of confidence to back them. Every time we met with them the numbers were growing, and we knew the future was very bright for Honey very early on."
Lee co-founded LegalZoom in 2001 and went on to team with celebrities to launch consumer brands, such as Shoedazzle with Kim Kardashian in 2009 and The Honest Company with Jessica Alba in 2011. Lee is also an investor in dot.LA.
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Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
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