Marcy Venture Partners, co-founded by Jay-Z, Raises $85M Fund

Marcy Venture Partners, the VC firm co-founded by Jay-Z, Jay Brown and Larry Marcus, raised $85 million for its first fund, according to a new filing.

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Marcy Venture Partners, which was founded last year and is based in San Francisco, focuses on consumer brands. Its name is a nod to Brooklyn’s Marcy Houses where Jay-Z grew up.

The firm has already made a number of deals. It’s invested in six companies so far, leading the rounds for three, according to Crunchbase. Its most recent investment was in electric mobility startup Wheels in October 2019, and the largest round it’s led so far was a $70 million round for singer Rihanna’s lingerie line Savage X Fenty. The firm’s first investment since it was founded in March 2019 was Hungry Marketplace’s $8 million Series A in April 2019.

It’s a quick pace of investing for the first seven months of a VC firm’s existence, but the co-founders are no strangers to the world of venture capital.

Jay Brown, who co-founded Roc Nation with Jay-Z and served as its CEO until late last year, has invested in companies like BeautyCon and Right Rice. Jay-Z, hip-hop’s first billionaire, is also known for backing high-profile companies like Uber and Impossible Foods. And Larry Marcus is a seasoned venture capitalist. He’s the director of Walden Venture Capital, which invested in companies like Pandora and SoundHound, and he backed companies like Netflix and BandPage as an angel investor, according to Walden VC’s website.

Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias