Ben Schwerin, a longtime Snap govt, is becoming a member of funding agency Coatue to launch its Los Angeles workplace.
Getty Photos for Snap, Inc.
Coatue is tapping a longtime Snap govt to function its subsequent basic associate main client and web investing.
Ben Schwerin, Snap’s senior vice chairman of content material and partnerships, is departing the social media firm on the finish of March to affix Coatue in early April. Schwerin, who is predicated in Los Angeles, is predicted to assist construct out the agency’s first workplace in that metropolis this summer time. Selection beforehand reported phrase of Schwerin’s departure from Snap.
“I’m excited to take all the pieces we’ve carried out at Snap and apply that to Coatue’s portfolio, and new alternatives we discover,” Schwerin informed Forbes.
Schwerin will make investments throughout early and progress levels for Coatue centered on client web corporations, however can also be anticipated to take a look at potential investments in synthetic intelligence and to a lesser extent local weather tech, healthcare and fintech.
One in all Snap’s longest-serving executives, Schwerin joined the corporate in 2015 after cofounding Fenway Methods, a communications consulting agency, with Crooked Media founders Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor in 2013. Schwerin additionally beforehand labored with Invoice Clinton in his New York workplace and with U2 frontman Bono on tour and in his philanthropic efforts.
Schwerin really met Snap cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel by way of Coatue – Thomas Laffont, the agency’s cofounder, met Schwerin a few years earlier, when Laffont was a expertise agent at CAA, and Schwerin a helpful intern. After becoming a member of his brother at Coatue, Laffont was contemplating an funding in Snap when he instructed Schwerin and Spiegel get lunch. (Coatue invested $50 million in Snap’s Sequence C introduced in December 2013.) Schwerin served as an adviser for a 12 months earlier than becoming a member of Snap full-time.
Snap promoted Schwerin in 2021 so as to add content material to partnerships as a part of his purview. He wasn’t actively searching for a job outdoors of Snap when the Coatue alternative materialized, Schwerin stated. “I’m very glad at Snap, and really optimistic about Snap’s future. It was the suitable alternative and the suitable folks,” he added. Requested how he would describe his legacy at Snap, Schwerin stated he pointed to the group he’s now forsaking on the partnerships facet, in addition to the worldwide enterprise relationships developed with the likes of Disney, Google and the NFL.
He declined to touch upon what Spiegel felt in regards to the departure. (Forbes has requested Snap for Spiegel’s remark and can replace this story with any response.) “I’ll say Evan and I’ve an ideal relationship, and I’m such an admirer of him as a frontrunner and innovator,” Schwerin stated. “I don’t suppose I’d be leaving if I didn’t really feel actually good about our technique, path and management. I do know they are going to be tremendous with out me.”
At Coatue, Laffont stated the agency stood to learn from Schwerin’s expertise “at the vanguard” of improvements whereas at Snap, from the way it rethought using a digicam in app experiences to exercise feeds and augmented actuality. Such expertise might additionally show invaluable because the agency seems to speculate extra in AI, Laffont added. “We predict AI might have the same wave to the iPhone,” launching a wave of startups. “And we need to be very effectively positioned to that.”
Shwerin’s rent additionally displays Coatue’s dedication to Los Angeles, the place the agency has employed a basic associate prior to now, however hadn’t but constructed out a full workplace. “One thing I felt was actually vital to Snap’s DNA was that we weren’t in Silicon Valley. It gave us entry to completely different industries, and inventive folks,” Schwerin stated. “And one factor that’s nice about Los Angeles is that we’re very near San Francisco.”
It additionally comes throughout a wider interval of turnover at Coatue, the agency based by Thomas and Philippe Laffont as a hedge fund in 1999. Thomas joined full-time in 2003 to ascertain its world personal fairness apply; lately, the agency emerged as one of the vital lively buyers in tech startups, with many extra moreover Snap equivalent to exited corporations DoorDash, Lyft and Slack, and present unicorns equivalent to Airtable, Databricks and Scale AI.
However amid a tightened capital surroundings that has put stress on some so-called crossover funds to reduce their startup ambitions, Coatue has additionally had a sequence of current associate departures, together with three companions final 12 months. Most just lately, a associate in its progress group who made a few of its AI investments, David Cahn, left for Sequoia, as reported just lately by Axios.
Coming within the door, Schwerin was preceded by Sri Viswanath, Atlassian’s former CTO who joined the agency final 12 months to steer its AI investments. Laffont stated Coatue stays “completely dedicated to the ecosystem” at each stage, whereas the agency holds board director or observer seats at greater than 100 corporations. “We’re lively members,” he added.
“When you’re an investor, you need to be the place persons are deploying capital. If not, what are you doing?” Laffont stated. “On the finish of the day, I don’t suppose there may be somebody who has deployed extra capital into the ecosystem than we have now. And we’re all the time innovating on the method.”
