Ashton Kutcher leaving Sound Ventures to launch new VC firm with Morgan Beller

阿什顿·库彻离开 Sound Ventures，将与摩根·贝勒共同创立新的风险投资公司

Ashton Kutcher is stepping away from Sound Ventures — the firm he co-founded with Guy Oseary 11 years ago — to start a separate VC fund, the Wall Street Journal reported. 据《华尔街日报》报道，阿什顿·库彻（Ashton Kutcher）正在离开他 11 年前与盖伊·奥瑟里（Guy Oseary）共同创立的 Sound Ventures，转而筹备成立一家独立的风险投资基金。

The actor and investor’s new firm is being co-founded with Morgan Beller, who until recently was a general partner at seed-focused VC outfit NFX and previously co-led cryptocurrency project Libra at Meta. Beller also spent nearly three years as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. 这位演员兼投资人的新公司将与摩根·贝勒（Morgan Beller）共同创立。贝勒此前曾担任专注于种子轮投资的风险投资机构 NFX 的普通合伙人，并曾共同领导 Meta 的加密货币项目 Libra。此外，贝勒还在 Andreessen Horowitz 担任过近三年的合伙人。

TechCrunch had separately heard that Kutcher was preparing to leave; the WSJ’s report confirms it and adds new detail on his plans with Beller. The name of the new firm hasn’t been made public yet. TechCrunch 此前已获悉库彻准备离职的消息；《华尔街日报》的报道证实了这一点，并补充了他与贝勒合作计划的更多细节。目前，这家新公司的名称尚未公开。

Kutcher’s exit doesn’t appear to be a sign of trouble at Sound Ventures — investors often leave firms that are underperforming, but that’s not the case here. The firm, which has backed companies like Brex and Gusto, was also an early investor in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs. 库彻的离职似乎并非 Sound Ventures 出现问题的迹象——投资者通常会在业绩不佳时离开公司，但这里的情况并非如此。该公司曾投资过 Brex 和 Gusto 等企业，也是 OpenAI、Anthropic 以及李飞飞创办的 World Labs 的早期投资者。

The split is also notable for what it signals about where AI money is heading next: Sound built its reputation on concentrated, high-conviction bets in category-leading AI labs, while Kutcher’s new fund appears to be chasing the layer underneath those companies — the infrastructure and energy that power them. 此次分道扬镳也值得关注，因为它预示了人工智能资金的下一个流向：Sound 凭借对行业领先 AI 实验室的集中、高信念投资建立了声誉，而库彻的新基金似乎正在追逐这些公司底层的领域——即驱动它们的算力基础设施和能源。

“He and his fund consistently make it onto [my] rankings of top unicorn investors. An interesting case!” Stanford finance professor Ilya Strebulaev, who tracks top-performing VCs, wrote on X. The actor has known OpenAI’s Sam Altman since Altman founded Loopt — years before the launch of the ChatGPT maker. 斯坦福大学金融学教授伊利亚·斯特雷布拉耶夫（Ilya Strebulaev）在 X 上写道：“他和他的基金一直位列[我统计的]顶级独角兽投资者榜单。这是一个有趣的案例！”这位演员与 OpenAI 的萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）相识已久，早在 ChatGPT 诞生前几年，奥特曼创立 Loopt 时两人就已结识。

Kutcher’s departure was partly due to different views on which startup stages to target for investments, with Sound leaning toward backing companies that are already more established, rather than betting on very early-stage startups, according to WSJ. 据《华尔街日报》报道，库彻的离职部分原因是双方在投资初创企业的阶段上存在分歧：Sound 倾向于支持已经相对成熟的公司，而不是押注极早期的初创企业。

Kutcher and Beller are focused on making early-stage investments in AI infrastructure, energy, and deep tech startups — startups built around hard science and engineering breakthroughs rather than software alone. 库彻和贝勒则专注于对 AI 基础设施、能源和深科技初创企业进行早期投资——这些初创企业围绕硬科学和工程突破构建，而不仅仅是软件开发。

Despite leaving Sound Ventures, Kutcher will continue to serve as an adviser to the firm. Meanwhile, Oseary and Sound general partner Effie Epstein will advise Kutcher and Beller’s new firm. 尽管离开了 Sound Ventures，库彻仍将继续担任该公司的顾问。与此同时，奥瑟里和 Sound 的普通合伙人埃菲·爱泼斯坦（Effie Epstein）将担任库彻和贝勒新公司的顾问。