How Act One VC Became One of LA’s Top Seed Funds

Act One Ventures’ Fund 1 was $4M. Their second investment was AuditBoard. Every other investor passed. “The market is too small”, they said.In 2024 it sold for $3.1 billion, one of the biggest software exits of the year, on just $43.5M ever raised.Alejandro didn't learn to spot that in venture. He learned it in music. His early career was A&R, the people who find talent before anyone signs it. He came up under the man who discovered Linkin Park, a band every label had passed on. He reads founders the way a scout reads a raw artist. Not by the resume. By whether they've lived the thing they're building.That instinct isn't an accident. Alejandro grew up fifteen minutes from the Tijuana border. Son of a mechanic, first in his family, no network.Also in this episode:- The Linkin Park analogy for how real pattern matching works- How a $73M fund accidentally became a native AI fund- The hard conversations, in person not over Zoom, with founders whose model no longer works’- The investing principle from the border: "I try to keep it real"GET THE BEST OF THE INTERVIEWS IN OUR NEWSLETTER🗞️Read it: https://rebrand.ly/tssnwsrssAlejandro's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alguerrero/Enzo's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enzo-cavalie