Before joining Heartland, Lucas worked across healthcare, housing, consumer, and industrial companies—running operations at LetsGetChecked, serving as a GM at Bungalow, working on strategy at Trunk Club, and advising industrial clients at KeyBanc—while also founding an esports marketplace called FanHome that won first place at a Kellogg accelerator and testing out venture investing part-time at MATH Venture Partners. Since moving into venture, he has hosted and appeared in multiple episodes of the Tech Optimist podcast, including one where he interviewed UNIXi's CEO about authentication technology, written about cyber trends and the moats he invests behind, and spoken at the BuiltWorlds Global Summit about how investment in the built world is changing.