Not content to sit back and produce music, the Chainsmokers launched a venture capital fund earlier this year. To date, the duo has collected $35 million in investments heavyweights such as billionaires Mark Cuban and Jim Coulter.
Managed by Milan Koch and Jeffery Evens, the venture capital firm has been named Mantis. Investments by the company include Loansnap, a mortgage-lending startup and Fiton, a fitness app. According to TechCrunch, Chainsmoker member Drew Taggert stated their target is to invest in startups that could ‘potentially benefit its young audience.”
LoanSnap impressed the duo with the companies goal to process loans more quickly than other lenders.
Taggert also noted there was a “massive press opportunity for LoanSnap at a time when COVID was hitting and there was going to be billions of dollars in refinancing going on that [the company] wanted to participate in.”.
The duo has said they have modeled their investments after Jimmy Buffet who has a diversified collections of lodging, restaurants and even retirement communities.
Tagger continued:
“When we started eight years ago, our fans were primarily all in college. Now they are dealing with paying back their college loans, and they’re probably applying to buy their first house, so a company like LoanSnap feels like one of those startups whose services our fans have grown into needing.”
Alex Pall also noted:
“I’d like to say that we were like thinking in this incredible way about the business at the time, but we were just like, ‘This is a really great product and we love the founder.
Two years ago the duo “decided to kind of change our strategy and go seek out the opportunities that we thought were out there… We thought that maybe if we institutionalize this process, [we’ll discover] a lot more opportunity out there for us to work with dynamic founders and interesting founders who are going to change the landscape of tomorrow.”
Other businesses the Chainsmokers are involved in besides Mantis include a production studio, part of JaJa Tequila a small-batch spirit brand and they co-founded YellowHeart, a ticketing platform built for performers.
H/T: TechCrunch
