Two former senior executives at US-based media company Disney’s corporate venturing unit and the former chief executive (CEO) of event tickets company Ticketmaster have set up venture firm Knightship.
Dan Beldy and Beau Laskey, veterans of Steamboat Ventures, and Sean Moriarty, Ticketmaster CEO from January 2007 to March 2009, have set up Knightship, which is named after a spaceship in UK mathematician John Horton Conway’s Game of Life.
Laskey said by e-mail the team was “using it for a collection of assets and joint projects”.
The firm says on its website: “Just as in [the Game of] Life, we believe in applying basic business rules, simplicity and our collective experience and wisdom to recognize patterns in new product development and business creation. Amidst the chaos of life, we see opportunity.”
It was confirmed Beldy and Laskey had left Steamboat Ventures’s US office in January this year. Steamboat was said to be refocusing towards Asia after the move of its head, John Ball, to Hong Kong.
At about the same time, Scott Hilleboe, managing director of Steamboat’s Los Angeles office, left to join Revolution Growth, a venture capital firm founded by internet services provider AOL’s co-founder, Steve Case, and two of his former employees, Ted Leonsis, and Donn Davis. Revolution Growth is a $450m fund based in Washington DC focused on consumer-facing, technology-enabled businesses that disrupt multi-billion dollar industries.
Additional reporting by Tim Lafferty, managing director.