Ashton Kutcher to Launch New Venture Capital Firm with Morgan Beller After Leaving Sound Ventures

Actor and investor Ashton Kutcher is departing Sound Ventures, the venture capital firm he co-founded alongside Guy Oseary more than a decade ago, to establish a new investment firm with Morgan Beller, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Beller most recently served as a general partner at seed-stage venture capital firm NFX and previously helped lead Meta’s Libra cryptocurrency initiative. Before joining NFX, she also spent nearly three years as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

Rumours that Kutcher was preparing to leave Sound Ventures had circulated previously. Still, the Wall Street Journal report confirms his departure while providing additional details about his next venture with Beller. The name of the new investment firm has not yet been publicly disclosed.

Kutcher’s decision to move on does not appear to reflect any difficulties at Sound Ventures. Investors occasionally leave venture firms following disappointing performance, but Sound Ventures has continued to build an impressive portfolio over the years. The firm has invested in companies including Brex and Gusto. It has also become an early backer of major artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs.

The transition is also significant because it highlights where venture capital interest within the AI sector may be heading. Sound Ventures built much of its reputation through concentrated investments in leading AI laboratories and category-defining companies. Kutcher’s upcoming fund, however, is expected to focus on the foundational technologies beneath those AI platforms, including infrastructure, energy, and other technologies required to support the expanding AI ecosystem.

Stanford finance professor Ilya Strebulaev, who closely follows leading venture capital investors, commented on X about Kutcher’s investment track record.

“He and his fund consistently make it onto [my] rankings of top unicorn investors. An interesting case!” Strebulaev wrote.

Kutcher has maintained close relationships within the technology industry for years. He has known OpenAI CEO Sam Altman since the early days of Loopt, the location-based social networking startup Altman founded long before OpenAI introduced ChatGPT.

According to the Wall Street Journal, one reason for Kutcher’s departure was a difference in investment strategy. Sound Ventures has increasingly focused on backing more mature, established companies, while Kutcher reportedly preferred concentrating on startups at much earlier stages of development.

Kutcher and Beller are expected to direct their new firm toward early-stage investments across AI infrastructure, energy technologies, and deep-tech companies built around scientific innovation and engineering breakthroughs rather than software products alone.

Although Kutcher is leaving Sound Ventures, he will continue to serve as an adviser to the firm. At the same time, Guy Oseary and Sound Ventures general partner Effie Epstein are expected to advise Kutcher and Beller as they build and expand their new venture capital firm.