Connect Ventures, From the CAA, Adds to Leadership

 Connect Ventures, the venture capital arm of the CAA, has built out its leadership team further. Brandon Blake, our entertainment attorney from Blake & Wang P.A, tells us more about the change.


Brandon Blake

Post-Expansion Leadership

Connect Ventures was the CAA’s first expansion into venture capital, founded in 2020 as a joint venture with New Enterprise Associates. It works as an investment vehicle, helping to start up and grow early-stage consumer businesses not just for media and entertainment, but also sports, gaming, health and wellness, and e-commerce.

 

Their team is now joined by both Nicole Quinn and Michael Blank as managing partners, while Adam Friedmann from the CAA joins as a venture partner. He will be their daily lead for both Hollywood talent management and sports representation.

NEA Remains

New Enterprise Associates remains as a partner, although together with the CAA, this is something of a relaunch of the firm to be a proper new entrant into venture capital, hoping to put the CAA’s global relationships to work, as well as leaning on its sports and entertainment expertise.

 

Friedmann has been on the CAA team since 2012 and was one of the key people behind securing the New Enterprise Associates partnership to start with. Quinn, meanwhile, has spent the last decade at Lightspeed Venture Partners, where she moved from retail and internet at Morgan Stanley. The joint venture is hoping to put that experience in investment to work for them.

 

Blank, meanwhile, departed CAA late last year, having been there for 15 years, finishing as the head of consumer investments. He has done considerable work with the venture capital company from its first days, so his shift into leadership is anything but surprising. He will act as the agency’s primary representative for the new firm.

 

With these two additions, it’s clear that Connect Ventures is hoping to achieve big things. Hopefully, some fresh leadership and expanded experience will be exactly what the firm needs for success.

 

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