Ashton Kutcher teams up with Morgan Beller for early-stage startup bets

Ashton Kutcher is setting up a new venture firm with Morgan Beller, the former NFX general partner who helped build some of Facebook’s most closely watched crypto and payments efforts. The pairing puts one of the best-known celebrity investors together with a founder-investor whose background runs through digital wallets, blockchain infrastructure and consumer internet bets.

Beller recently stepped down from NFX after joining the firm in September 2020, bringing experience from Facebook, Calibra and Andreessen Horowitz. At Facebook, she co-created Libra, later renamed Diem, and led strategy for Novi, the company’s digital wallet for the Libra payment system. That mix of crypto, fintech and product strategy gives the new firm an edge in areas where early-stage founders still need capital, technical judgment and access to distribution.

Kutcher’s move also marks a notable shift for Sound Ventures, the Beverly Hills firm he co-founded with Guy Oseary in 2015. Sound Ventures has said it aims to “invest early, move with conviction, and stay hands-on” with founders, and it has already become one of the most visible celebrity-backed platforms in venture capital. In 2023, the firm closed a nearly $240 million AI fund whose first reported investments included Anthropic, Stability AI and OpenAI.

Kutcher’s own track record has helped make that platform credible with institutional investors and startups alike. He has been reported as an early investor in Airbnb, Uber, Spotify, Affirm and OpenAI, a list that spans consumer internet, ride-hailing, streaming, fintech and frontier AI. The new partnership with Beller suggests that early-stage capital is still concentrating around founders building at the intersection of software, artificial intelligence and financial infrastructure, even as more established venture firms compete for the same deals.