Greg Castle (Anorak Ventures) on Investing in Oculus and Filtering VC Advice

The Guest

Greg Castle is the managing partner at Anorak Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on virtual & augmented reality, computer vision, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and IoT. 

Earlier in his career, Greg was a restaurant entrepreneur before turning to technology as corporate marketer with a focus on gaming and 3D development tools. He found his way to angel investing with a passion for helping specialized teams working on disruptive technologies.

At this point, Greg has worked closely with, and invested in, over 70 companies. He counts six exits among them, including the $3B acquisition of Oculus by Facebook. 

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The Conversation

In this conversation, Greg shares some of the joys and moments of frustration he felt as an Oculus investor. It turns out that some ideas you get from your investors are better than others.

He also gives his perspective on Facebook as the primary benefactor of VR, and his hopes for another player to push the ecosystem and balance the scales.

Greg goes on to describe his take on the current state of the VR & AR markets and reflects on his own growth as an investor.

To start, Greg recounts an important lesson he learned as an entrepreneur and how he applies that to picking teams as an investor.

Jason McDowallAR smartglasses, VR, investor, mobile AR