{"id":4,"date":"2014-01-22T17:20:47","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T17:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/?page_id=4"},"modified":"2026-06-26T13:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:33:15","slug":"about-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/about-me\/","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Background<\/h6>\n

I spend a lot of time thinking about technology catalysts, the waves of disruption they create and the new companies that emerge from these waves. I invest broadly across the technology spectrum, but my primary areas of interest are vertical AI, fintech and defense. <\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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My Interest in Vertical AI<\/h6>\n

I am particularly interested in startups using artificial intelligence to revolutionize decision-making in specific verticals. Foundation models have dramatically lowered the cost of cognition, and this has unlocked a new generation of vertical AI companies that embed intelligence directly into mission-critical workflows. I am particularly focused on AI platforms in financial services, law and defense, where data is rich, decisions are high-stakes and workflow complexity creates natural barriers to entry.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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My Interest in Fintech<\/h6>\n

I have broad interests in fintech and have gone particularly deep in wealthtech, where I have invested in a set of companies that are rebuilding the technology foundations of the wealth and asset management industries, including Altruist<\/a>, a full-stack digital custodian; Arca<\/a>, an AI-first Registered Investment Advisor; Moment<\/a>, an operating system for investment management; Vanilla<\/a>, an AI estate planning platform; and FINNY<\/a>, an AI-driven prospecting platform for financial advisors. <\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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My Interest in Defense<\/h6>\n

The revolutionary impact of AI on the character of warfare and intelligence has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity for startups in the defense world. Some defense startups I have invested in include Dataminr<\/a>, a real-time AI platform that identifies critical breaking information from publicly available information; and Percipient.ai<\/a>, a visual intelligence platform for national security.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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Importance of Great People<\/h6>\n

As much as I try to understand the specifics of these investment areas, I frequently meet brilliant entrepreneurs who are many steps ahead of me and who have developed a clear vision of what the world will look like in a particular space and have outlined a compelling new business idea to pursue in it. This is the most fun part of my job, and above all I spend my time trying to find the great new entrepreneurs of tomorrow.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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When I Like to Invest<\/h6>\n

I like to invest early in companies I think have significant disruptive potential and help them develop their product and business strategies and build out their teams. This is the time where I feel I can add the most value to these companies. Most of the companies I invest in have less than 10 employees, and most have not yet launched a product. I\u2019m happy to invest however much an entrepreneur needs, and my initial investments generally range from $500K to $15m.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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My Interest in NYC<\/h6>\n

I live in New York City and am a big advocate of the New York startup ecosystem. I started investing in New York in 2003, when the venture capital industry viewed it as an unconventional idea. New York is now one of the largest and fastest-growing<\/a> startup ecosystems in the world, and in my view its growth will only accelerate in the decades ahead.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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Other Interests<\/h6>\n

I have deep interests in public policy and in particular how technology is changing geopolitics and national security. I serve on the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations<\/a>, a foreign policy think thank, and participated on Task Forces there on Innovation and National Security: Keeping Our Edge<\/a> and Confronting Reality in Cyberspace: Foreign Policy for a Fragmented Internet<\/a>. I also serve as an Advisor to the Special Competitive Studies Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I am very interested in the role of global innovation in economic development and serve on the Board of Directors of Endeavor<\/a>, a particularly cool non-profit organization that supports high-impact entrepreneurs globally and helps catalyze startup ecosystems in countries and regions underserved by venture capital markets. To date Endeavor has supported over 2,000 high-impact entrepreneurs, and today their companies generate over $10 billion in revenue and have created over 3 million jobs. Tom Friedman called Endeavor \u201cthe best anti-poverty program of all.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m not chasing the next big idea or my three children around the house, you might find me windsurfing or kiteboarding wherever I can find a strong enough wind.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

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                                                   Background I spend a lot of time thinking about technology catalysts, the waves of disruption they create and the new companies that emerge from these waves. I invest broadly across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":93,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1301,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4\/revisions\/1301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickbeim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}