Creation and community are being rebuilt — across screens and spaces alike. 449 Ventures partners with creators and founders at the earliest stages, investing where our operating experience in media and real estate makes us more than just capital.
We invest at the pre-seed and seed stages in companies building at the intersection of the physical and digital worlds — where technology reshapes how people create, connect, and build. Our approach is grounded in decades of operating experience across these ecosystems. We invest where we can be genuinely additive, not just capital providers.
We've built, scaled, and led companies across the industries where we invest. That firsthand experience means we speak the language of our founders and can help navigate the hardest stages of company building.
We partner with founders at the earliest stages — pre-seed and seed — when conviction matters most. We back people and ideas before consensus forms, and we stay close through the journey.
We invest exclusively where our networks, experience, and pattern recognition can meaningfully accelerate outcomes. If we can't add value beyond capital, we pass.
One of the largest premium digital media publishers reaching hundreds of millions of readers, with a portfolio of brands including Bustle, Elite Daily, Mic, Nylon, Inverse, and more.
The first-ever creative campus and studio playground for the creator economy. The Lighthouse builds physical spaces designed to enable and empower career creators and creative professionals — places to co-create, connect, learn, and grow as founders of the businesses fueling creative culture.
A creator-first platform built around original character creation, collection, and management. Born from artists' frustrations with exploitative fees and misaligned platforms, Unvale gives creators a fair, community-driven home to imagine, build, and share the characters at the heart of creative culture.
Evan Luzzatto is the Founder and Managing Partner of 449 Ventures. Based in Los Angeles, he brings over a decade of operating experience at the highest levels of media, technology, and platform businesses — and deploys that pattern recognition into early-stage investing.
Prior to founding 449 Ventures, Evan served as Chairman and CEO of Socialyte, a leading influencer marketing agency (acquired by Dolphin Entertainment), and President of Nylon Media Inc., where he led the iconic digital media brand through a period of rapid growth (acquired by Bustle Digital Group).
Before stepping into executive leadership, Evan was an early member of the business development team at Snap, where he helped build and scale the Discover platform — overseeing its expansion into the UK, France, and Germany. Prior to Snap, Evan held business and operations roles at Instagram and Facebook during formative periods for both platforms.
Evan serves on the Board of Directors for the Organization for Social Media Safety, a non-profit dedicated to protecting users in the digital ecosystem.
His investing thesis is rooted in this firsthand operating experience — he invests where he has built, scaled, and led, partnering with founders at the earliest and most consequential stages of company building.
Evan's work and perspectives have been featured in Business Insider, WWD, and Digiday, among other publications, and he has appeared as a guest on the Colin and Samir Show.
We're actively investing at pre-seed and seed. If you're building something at the convergence of physical and digital — we'd love to hear from you.
evan@luzzattoventures.com