Current Firm
Crosscut Ventures
Focus
Climate, Aerospace & Defense
Rick Smith brings an unusual blue-collar background to venture capital, having been adopted by high school dropout parents in Illinois where his father ran a small plumbing business, and working jobs from pipe fitting at nuclear plants to de-tasseling corn before becoming a lawyer and then VC. He built a $750 million corporate venture platform from scratch at SunAmerica despite initially knowing little about tech, then co-founded Crosscut as a $5 million fund during the 2008 financial crisis and grew it into a larger platform that has produced multiple unicorns from that original tiny fund.
Rick Smith is a CO-FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR, Crosscut Ventures at Crosscut Ventures, based in Los Angeles, CA.
Rick's investment focus spans Climate, Aerospace & Defense, Space, Enterprise, primarily investing at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B+ stages. This specialization allows for deep domain knowledge and strong network effects that benefit portfolio companies.
Rick Smith is a CO-FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR, Crosscut Ventures at Crosscut Ventures, based in Los Angeles, CA. Their investment focus includes Climate, Aerospace & Defense, Space.
Rick Smith focuses on investments in Climate, Aerospace & Defense, Space, Enterprise through Crosscut Ventures. These focus areas reflect their domain expertise and the types of startups they actively seek to back.
Rick Smith is currently at Crosscut Ventures, headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, serving as CO-FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR, Crosscut Ventures.