LA Venture Podcast

EPISODE 181

Nick Chirls — Notation Capital

April 19, 2023

Pre-Seed

Founder of Notation Capital Nick Chirls :

* Likes to invest in companies that are too early

* Prefers when it's hard to explain what the company is doing

* Does not think now is a good time to invest in AI

* And is basically full of strong opinions and sounds nothing like a VC

Full transcript

Today I am in person in Venice with Nick Chirls. Nick is one of the founders of Notation Capital, a seed and pre-seed funds started in New York. Nick is also the host of a fabulous podcast Origins. Origins has a lot of great venture discussions - mostly from the LP point of view. Before starting Notation, Nick was head of seed investing at a New York-based studio and fund Betaworks.

Nick, thanks for coming over. Thanks for having me. Very weird to be on this side of the mic as we discussed. I'm much more comfortable interviewing and asking the questions than answering, but I will try my best.

It's funny, I feel like it's harder to ask the questions cause I have to be thinking versus just telling my usual stories.
I like being able to control the narrative. I find myself, like even with founders giving the Notation, Betaworks pitch, I'm like so bored of hearing my own shit.

Yeah. Well, this is gonna be awkward when I ask you to tell the same boring story.