Money still isn’t a thing for Jay-Z. The rapper and mogul added onto his business empire with the reported launch of a new venture capital firm last month, according to paperwork filed in California. The venture could push Jay to help Black business owners.
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, is the man behind Marcy Venture Partners, according to filings cited by Axios on Friday (June 22). The mogul and Beyoncé‘s husband joined forces with Silicon Valley capitalist and Walden Venture Capital’s managing director Lawrence Marcus and Roc Nation President Jay Brown for the venture.
The fund is said to be named in honor of Jay’s childhood home, an apartment in the Marcy Houses public housing complex in Brooklyn, New York, Business Insider reported. Marcy Houses have been talked about extensively in Jay’s lyrics over the years.
Jay-Z’s new business comes after reports of the rapper’s plans to set up a venture capital partnership with San Francisco-based VC firm Sherpa Capital. The plans, said to involve the rapper investing money in startups and tech companies, were put on hold, but later resumed, Axios reported.
Jay had also previously turned his attention to venture capital as a financial supporter for several high-profile companies. He has backed businesses including the luggage company Away, brokerage app Robinhood and the private jet company JetSmarter.
The rapper, who recently dropped a joint album with Beyoncé and went on tour with his superstar wife, ran into some trouble in May when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission asked a federal judge to order Jay-Z to testify about a purchasing deal involving his Rocawear clothing line. The SEC’s subpeona didn’t imply that Jay was accused of any wrongdoing, but he was considered a person of interest with information relevant to the case.
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