Ben Schwerin, a longtime Snap govt, is becoming a member of funding agency Coatue to launch its Los Angeles workplace.
Getty Photographs for Snap, Inc.
Coatue is tapping a longtime Snap govt to function its subsequent normal companion main shopper and web investing.
Ben Schwerin, Snap’s senior vp 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 anticipated 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 advised Forbes.
Schwerin will make investments throughout early and development phases for Coatue targeted on shopper web corporations, however can also be anticipated to have a look at potential investments in synthetic intelligence and to a lesser extent local weather tech, healthcare and fintech.
Considered one of 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 truly met Snap cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel by 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 steered Schwerin and Spiegel get lunch. (Coatue invested $50 million in Snap’s Collection C introduced in December 2013.) Schwerin served as an adviser for a yr 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 mentioned. “I’m very completely satisfied at Snap, and really optimistic about Snap’s future. It was the appropriate alternative and the appropriate individuals,” he added. Requested how he would describe his legacy at Snap, Schwerin mentioned he pointed to the staff he’s now abandoning 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 excellent relationship, and I’m such an admirer of him as a frontrunner and innovator,” Schwerin mentioned. “I don’t assume 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 fantastic with out me.”
At Coatue, Laffont mentioned the agency stood to learn from Schwerin’s expertise “at the forefront” of improvements whereas at Snap, from the way it rethought the usage of a digital camera in app experiences to exercise feeds and augmented actuality. Such expertise may additionally show invaluable because the agency seems to take a position extra in AI, Laffont added. “We predict AI may have the same wave to the iPhone,” launching a wave of startups. “And we wish 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 normal companion previously, however hadn’t but constructed out a full workplace. “One thing I felt was actually essential to Snap’s DNA was that we weren’t in Silicon Valley. It gave us entry to totally different industries, and artistic individuals,” Schwerin mentioned. “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 determine its international non-public fairness follow; lately, the agency emerged as some of the energetic 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 setting that has put stress on some so-called crossover funds to reduce their startup ambitions, Coatue has additionally had a sequence of latest companion departures, together with three companions final yr. Most not too long ago, a companion in its development staff who made a few of its AI investments, David Cahn, left for Sequoia, as reported not too long ago by Axios.
Coming within the door, Schwerin was preceded by Sri Viswanath, Atlassian’s former CTO who joined the agency final yr to steer its AI investments. Laffont mentioned 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 energetic contributors,” he added.
“For those who’re an investor, you wish to be the place individuals are deploying capital. If not, what are you doing?” Laffont mentioned. “On the finish of the day, I don’t assume there’s somebody who has deployed extra capital into the ecosystem than we now have. And we’re all the time innovating on the formulation.”
