Venture capitalist Chris Sacca announced his retirement from startup investing today. This also means that he will not be on the hit TV show Shark Tank, at least for the next season. His firm, Lowercase Capital, will likely be run by partner Matt Mazzeo, but it’s reported that there is no new fund in the cards.
For those in tech, Sacca is perhaps best known for his early-stage investments in companies like Twitter, Twilio, Kickstarter, Bitly, Typekit, DailyBooth, SimpleGeo, Gowalla, Lookout, Instagram, Uber, Posterous, Medium, and Automattic. All of these were either funded by him personally or through Lowercase.
But he struck a chord with those outside of Silicon Valley through his role on Shark Tank. Sacca wrote that the person who was the most disappointed that he won’t be around for a third season was Mark Cuban: “Despite what you might surmise from on screen, he and I are actually good friends, just really competitive good friends. I’ll miss working with Mark, and all of the other Sharks. Each of them has been incredibly generous and warm to me and I am proud of all the episodes we made together.”
Sacca’s retirement from investing shouldn’t come as a total surprise as he had already dropped down to part-time and had brought Mazzeo in to manage the firm’s most recent fund. But because he wasn’t fully committed, Sacca felt it was time to bail: “Anything less than that unmitigated full commitment leaves me feeling frustrated and ineffective,” he said. “As you’ve heard me say on [Shark Tank], if I’m not all-in, I’m out.”
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As for Lowercase Capital, Sacca promised that Mazzeo has something exciting to announce soon and says he has placed a lot of faith in his successor: “Mazz has been a spectacular investor and an even better friend and collaborator. Crystal and I deeply appreciate his insight, his humor, his hustle, and above all, his high integrity. We couldn’t imagine building this business with anyone else, and especially not with better hair.” However, according to Axios, the firm will not be raising another fund, with the last fund being in 2014.
Sacca denied that this move was a prelude to running for political office, but he does plan on supporting efforts to fight the Trump administration, doing more television, launching a podcast, and focusing on raising his family.
