Rick Smith

CO-FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR, Crosscut Ventures
Rick Smith transformed a blue‑collar upbringing and trades (pipe‑fitting, de‑tasseling) into law then VC, building a $750M corporate venture platform and scaling a $5M 2008 fund into a unicorn‑producing platform.
How to contact Rick Smith
Stages their fund invests in
N/A
Sectors their fund invests in
N/A
Avg Check
$100K - $5M
N/A
Does their fund Lead?
Yes
N/A
Geos their fund invests in
USA
Rick Smith
Stages their fund invests in
N/A
Sectors their fund invests in
Space
Energy
Climate
Defense
Enterprise
N/A
Avg Check
$100K - $5M
N/A
Leads?
Yes
N/A
Close X
Industries
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Info out of date? Let us know

About Rick Smith

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.

About their Fund

Crosscut Ventures

Sectors
Space, Energy, Climate, Defense, Enterprise
Rounds
Seed - Series A
Avg Check Size
$100K - $5M

Founded in 2008 as one of the first seed firms deliberately built outside Silicon Valley, Crosscut has scaled to 170+ companies and $300M+ AUM while remaining LA-centered and formally pledging 1% of their investment into bespoke founder development including coaching, management training, and wellness programs. The firm is repositioning as a frontier-tech specialist focused on space, energy, advanced manufacturing, defense, and underwater exploration by following founders spinning out of SpaceX, Anduril, Northrop, and Boeing, while building a full-stack capital platform that includes growth and project-finance practice to bridge the "valley of death" for capital-intensive hardware and infrastructure companies.

Notable Fund
Investments

No items found.
Is this information out of date? Let us know

Popular Investors

investor name
Active in
Rounds
Avg. Check
Links
Deeptech / Hardware
Robotics
Biotech
+
12
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$400K - $2M
Unknown
Defense
Deeptech / Hardware
Energy
+
7
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Series A
Unknown
$100K - $5M
Unknown
Defense
Deeptech / Hardware
Energy
+
7
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Series A
Unknown
$100K - $5M
Unknown
Biotech
Health
Deeptech / Hardware
+
2
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$250K - $2M
Unknown
Biotech
Health
Climate
+
4
View more in profile...
Unknown
Seed - Series B+
Unknown
$1M - $3M
Unknown
Climate
Deeptech / Hardware
Materials
+
4
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$400K - $1.5M
Unknown
Deeptech / Hardware
Robotics
Biotech
+
7
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$400K - $2M
Unknown
Deeptech / Hardware
Robotics
Biotech
+
2
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
~$750K
Unknown
Fintech
Deeptech / Hardware
Devtools
+
2
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Series A
Unknown
$250K-$1M
Unknown
AI
Biotech
Robotics
+
2
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$100K - $500K
Unknown
Or automatically find your investor matches
Upload your pitch deck to get your best investor matches in minutes.
Reveal the very best VCs to pitch for your startup
Get matching investors' email addresses
No ads. No catch. Free from VC Sheet.
Must be a valid email  to receive results
Upload and Submit Deck (50MB Max)
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Success. Check your email in 5 minutes.
Browse Sheets
Sheet Type
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Browse
Sheets

Sheets are curated lists of funds and investors for various sectors, stages and geographies.

Sector-focused sheets

Stages-focused sheets

Geography-focused sheets

Misc sheets

No results match these filters...