LA Venture: Pritzker’s Matt McCall Advice to VCs on Managing Crisis: ‘Put on Your Own Mask First’

Minnie Ingersoll
Minnie Ingersoll is a partner at TenOneTen and host of the LA Venture podcast. Prior to TenOneTen, Minnie was the COO and co-founder of $100M+ Shift.com, an online marketplace for used cars. Minnie started her career as an early product manager at Google. Minnie studied Computer Science at Stanford and has an MBA from HBS. She recently moved back to L.A. after 20+ years in the Bay Area and is excited to be a part of the growing tech ecosystem of Southern California. In her space time, Minnie surfs baby waves and raises baby people.
LA Venture: Pritzker’s Matt McCall Advice to VCs on Managing Crisis: ‘Put on Your Own Mask First’

On this episode of the L.A. Venture podcast, hear Matt McCall discuss his journey into entrepreneurship and wearing life like "a loose sweater."

McCall is well-known to the L.A. venture community as a partner at the Pritzker Group. The company came from a very large family office, which owned The Hyatt, Royal Caribbean and the Marmon group, among others.


McCall set up the group's venture investing office about a decade ago, focusing on seed- and Series A-stage companies.

"The way that we've approached the businesses, we have an active seed program where we'll do quite a few number of seed deals each year -- between $250K and $1 million. And the idea is for that to kind-of build out our farm system. Then probably half of our [later-stage] deals come out of our seed deals and then the other half come through traditional means," said McCall.

Pritzker has invested in consumer companies including Coinbase, Dollar Shave Club and Cameo, as well as enterprise companies such as Matchbox, Project 44 and SMS Assist.

McCall's deep experience has made him a kind-of coach for area entrepreneurs.

"I would argue that I think the biggest issue is when something happens to the company, you need to put the mask on yourself first. It's your own fear that needs to be managed as a VC," said McCall.

McCall also shares his insight on investing in consumer companies and vertically integrated brands, as well as his views on cryptocurrency. Click on the playhead above to hear more.

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LA Tech ‘Moves’: Deep 6 AI and Point Predictive Gain New CROs

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech ‘Moves’: Deep 6 AI and Point Predictive Gain New CROs
LA Tech ‘Moves’:

“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.

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This Week in ‘Raises’: Britive Secures $20.5M, Mad Rabbit Lands $10M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

This Week in ‘Raises’: Britive Secures $20.5M, Mad Rabbit Lands $10M
This Week in ‘Raises’:

A local cloud identity security platform raised fresh funding to expand customer interest in the company’s intelligent privileged access management platform, while one tattoo aftercare company raised its largest funding round to date with the help from Mark Cuban and other notable investors to expand its product line, increase marketing efforts and grow its team.

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