All-In · Sep 30, 2026 · 32m · 17m saved
With Drew Taggart, General Partner at Mantis VC and Member of The Chainsmokers · Alex Pall, General Partner at Mantis VC and Member of The Chainsmokers
An institutional investor told the Chainsmokers he liked what they were doing but would not back "the chain smokers fund," because their name would be the first thing pointed out to him if anything went wrong.
The pair's answer was not to lean harder on the fame. They told a stage of venture investors that most celebrities treat venture as a novelty, that their teams skip the calls, and that the only thing limited partners remember is cash returned.
"I love being the underdog."
Drew Taggart and Alex Pall, general partners at Mantis VC and the two members of the Chainsmokers, on All-In, have spent a decade playing Las Vegas residencies and, in the host's words, have "invested in like a ton of unicorns." Their firm writes Series A checks in cybersecurity, AI infrastructure, deep tech and health tech, and has just had one of its first exits.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 32 minutes of audio, 15 minutes of reading.
Here are the 11 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
Venture is probably the last place a famous person should invest, they said: pay off the mortgage first
It is long-dated and illiquid, and the top 5% of companies generate 90% of returns
Fame opens doors with founders and closes them with institutional investors
Only cash returned to investors ends the argument, in their view, because investors forget everything except returns
Mantis never leads a round and calls itself the sixth man on a cap table
300,000 songs a day go up on Spotify, which is why they doubt they could break through today
Live DJ sets, not recordings, pay their bills, with far better economics than an arena tour with a band
Getting into hot Series A rounds and selling at the B or C could be a business model on its own, they said, but it is not theirs
Second tranches priced at two to three times the first, with no change in the business, drew the reply "That's bubbles"
One host said 19 of 21 angels turned down Uber because it was a "dirty" real-world business
1. Ten Years in Vegas
The hosts opened by recalling a Chainsmokers show, where they had gone backstage and walked out through the tunnel into a crowd of 10,000 in Las Vegas.
A residency they expect to keep
The duo said they have played the Wynn in Las Vegas for eight years and the city for 10, and expect to stay as long as they stay relevant. One host joked that the Wynn was the anchor investor in their fund. "Exactly," they replied.
A band formed through a friend of a friend
The two did not know each other before the Chainsmokers. Pall had started the act with someone else, they said, and after a falling-out he wanted a new partner to keep the DJ shows going around New York in 2011 and 2012. Taggart was finishing at Syracuse and making music at school. They met, decided to start a band, and are still best friends 14 years later.
