“I used to hear Will Smith say 'I’ll die on a treadmill,'" Mike Palank tells me.
It’s striking for two reasons. First, any time Will Smith comes up, my Miami-born brain is hard-wired to remember. The second is far more relevant: Palank, a former talent agent who’d worked at the Men In Black star’s Overbrook Entertainment, is articulating a view that’s clearly shared by his MaC Venture Capital cofounders, Marlon Nichols and Adrian Fenty. Case in point: Fenty—who served as mayor of Washington, D.C. from 2007 to 2011—described his approach to deal flow with fervor. He’s not sure any VC worth their weight in LP money "ever relaxes."
"You kind of stay maniacal about having the best deal flow, and you have to stay maniacal about not missing deals," said Fenty.
Fenty, Palank, and Nichols—an investor in MongoDB, Thrive Market, and Gimlet Media, and previously Intel Capital investment director—came together in 2019 to found MaC. The name is a homage to the two firms that came together to create MaC, Fenty’s M Ventures, and Nichols’ Cross Culture Ventures. Seed stage-focused MaC announced its first inaugural fund in 2021.
MaC has now closed its third fund at $150 million, Fortune has exclusively learned. The firm currently has about $600 million in assets under management, and its initial check size is now between $2 million and $3 million, up from $1.5 million in 2023. To date, MaC’s notable investments include Pipe, Stoke Space, Chef Robotics, and Wonder Dynamics, acquired by Autodesk this summer—a 5.4x exit for MaC.
MaC coming together wasn’t a given at all. In the beginning, Fenty, Palank, and Charles King —entrepreneur and Oscar-winning producer, and now-MaC general partner—didn’t think there was a chance that Nichols would be interested in teaming up.
"I wanted to build this large, multi-generational entity that was just going to survive forever," Nichols told Fortune. "In order to do that, I realized I needed some real thought partners that were going to be in the trenches with me, day in and day out."
It almost sounds like the beginning of a bit, right? "A mayor, a talent agent, and a CVC walk into a VC firm." However, the interdisciplinary qualities MaC brings to the table have been part of what’s seriously drawn founders to the firm. Fortune spoke to three MaC-backed founders, who all expressed that the partners’ multifaceted backgrounds have been vital to the firm’s success.
Andy Lapsa, Stoke Space CEO and cofounder said MaC “tends to think from first principles. They think independently, and they were able to come in and lead our round when there wasn't a lot of activity elsewhere in venture.” (Stoke, which makes reusable rockets, was founded in 2020 and has since raised $175 million, including from Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures.)
Then there’s that very particular and decidedly intimate relationship that founders and seed stage investors share. Shekel Mobility CEO and cofounder Sanmi Olukanmi, introduced to MaC by another investor after going through Y Combinator, describes his relationship with MaC as "running a business with a brother." It’s a sentiment that Wonder Dynamics CEO and cofounder Nikola Todorovic echoes—though Todorovic couldn’t say much about the now-closed Autodesk acquisition, he found MaC’s advice vital: "They really are the kind of folks that I can text at 1 AM."
MaC also invests internationally, including in Africa. (Shekel, for example, is Nigeria-based.)
"I think you have to be deliberate about finding talent outside of your hometown or state," Nichols said.
To me, one of the most persistent underlying questions in venture capital is: What background best serves a VC? To this end, I asked Fenty if he sees parallels between running Washington, D.C. and VC.
"I used to tell my cabinet, if we're not upsetting somebody, then we're probably not doing anything important or doing anything that's really going to change things," he said. "In other words, we were very disruptive."
But in the end, it’s Will Smith’s adage about staying on the treadmill. And when I hopped on the Zoom with Palank, Nichols, and Fenty, they were naturally discussing a deal.
"I'll text or email them on Saturday and Sunday, we'll take calls late into the evening, and many of our calls start at 8 AM," said Fenty. "It’s very unique to have people in the exact same position—and for that position to be one where we’re really hungry to make a great name for ourselves."
Join us...You're invited to Fortune Global Forum in NYC from Nov. 11-12. Speakers include seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady (we will not be reenacting Netflix's roast of the NFL legend) and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Wynton Marsalis. More information here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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