Last Monday, the impossible happened: I attended a venture capital event where I didn’t hear the terms “AI moat” or “application layer software” a single time. Instead, in between bites of sashimi and suspiciously sweet flavored water, about two dozen tech-curious influencers and self-described content creators gathered to hear pitches on aggressively non-AI-based companies, including a service that turns cherished remains into diamonds and a beverage startup.
We spend a lot of time here focused on the established voices of venture—the Sequoias, Insight Partners, and Kleiner Perkins of the world, which take a methodical approach of applying tried and true quantitative frameworks to divining the windfalls of the future. But as I spend time with the next generation of venture investors, I’m struck by their overwhelming belief that narrative and reach are just as important as the Rule of 40.
That’s the guiding argument of Bulletpitch, a hybrid media outfit and investing syndicate founded by the Gen Z entrepreneur Brett Perlmutter and run with the podcaster Felix Levine, who serves as managing partner, and their head of operations Alexis Ballo, who attended Middlebury with Perlmutter. Alongside its newsletter and the special purpose vehicles it organizes for trendy companies like the food startup Sauz, Bulletpitch hosts these monthly events where it brings together influencers with large social followings to listen to startup pitches, demo day style. “Founders need attention, and creators have attention,” Perlmutter said to open the event, which was hosted by Hudson Yards at their Japanese restaurant BondST.
