Ideal investor for your cap table:

Greg Castle has worked at Bloomberg, AutoDesk, and Glassdoor, but he is not known for where he worked. Rather, he is known for where he invested; Oculus. He backed Oculus at the Seed stage, he was an Angel for Palmer Luckey long before Meta ended up buying the company for $2B.

With that reference point in mind, Greg jumped head first into building Anorak Ventures, and wow has he ever! He notes his TVPI (paper gains) for Fund 1 were nearly 4X net to LP’s at the time of this recording.

His investments include Anduril (Palmer's second $B business), Osso VR, Prisms, Nevermet, and in fact, I proudly played a role in helping Anorak in the early days by introducing him to Rec Room. Greg says during our podcast many months back,

“Rec Room is one of our top performers, if not our top performer. Which you actually introduced us to. That was pretty huge. For the record, I shouted out to Matt from Sequoia because he actually led the seed round that I was in. But he didn't originally connect me, it was actually you. So thank you so much.”

That makes me smile! Glad it worked out for Nick too! Greg now focuses on a few key areas of investment:

• AR
• VR
• Gaming
• 3D
• Robotics
• AI

But if you ask Greg, it’s not about the technology – it’s all about the founder. For example, his most recent deal is a Space deal working on real time video streaming from Outerspace to Earth. When I asked Greg why he picked that founder, he noted the serial founder's background is perfectly applicable to solving the problem of video transmission from space.

So how did Greg get so lucky that he is now able to invest into high profile Space founders, Virtual reality companies, and more? It’s because gaming tech became applicable to so much more than just video games. He sharpened his teeth by becoming an expert in the gaming industry, but as a result he now has expertise within 3D, VR/AR, Film/TV, and even some Robotics. When he began back in 2010-2011, Unity was just starting to hit its stride. And now, they are the juggernaut with applications across automotive, gaming, robotics, and more.

This of course brings us to AR/VR. I asked Greg, “how do you feel about AR/VR?”

Greg said, “I think it’s a viable platform now. The numbers are there. The proof is in the pudding. Studios are putting out games and selling. They’re making real money.” Did he think it would be bigger? Yes, but it’s not. We both feel the logical reason is because only one big player is pouring money into headsets. And, the ergonomics and comfort make a big difference, but neither of those are up to par, yet. The Meta Quest 3 is a massive improvement in comfort and price point, and the Vision Pro from Apple is on the way to the higher end, premium market!

Greg has a ‘go with the flow’ type of career. He wasn’t raised with the investor mindset, but was indeed always uncovering what’s new and cool. He loves subculture, and especially loves the people who go deep into a niche. Greg’s best subject in school was actually the sciences. This sparked an interesting conversation later in our interview about the value of formal school. Although this podcast was recorded ~9 months ago, we correctly identified the changing tide. There seems to be a lack of necessity for parents to push their kids through traditional school; rather homeschooling, trade schools, and even Youtube are equally viable platforms to go deep into a niche interest. There's a million ways to learn now-a-days especially with online courses.

Watch our newly released episode with Greg:

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Greg is an incredible person, adviser, and VR legend. If you're a startup who has a proven CEO, this is the VC for you.

How to contact Greg?

​Greg's favorite podcast is Smartless with Will Arnett, and he loves news from Hacker news, Techcrunch, NY Times, BBC, and NPR. If you also love those, and want to get in contact with him, then that's a great cold intro topic for you :). .

Thank you as always for reading and sticking with me!

-Don Stein

p.s.

If you want to join our AR/VR community - we meet every Wednesday on Zoom -- including this Wednesday!

P.s.s.

The XR industry is one of the toughest to survive for startups. I surveyed AR/VR founders and the majority are urgently trying to raise a fundraising round. It’s sadly not because of break away metrics, but typically it is because they’ve underachieved on revenue. It’s a battle of who can stay alive, as Adam Draper says, ‘’be a cockroach.’’

Thank you!

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