Hamet Watt, co-founder of MoviePass, is moving forward from the company’s significant downfall to raise funds for a new venture studio aimed at supporting and developing startups.
In an interview with Business Insider, Watt shared that he has been diligently working on a new company called Share Ventures, which has already secured nearly $20 million in funding from investors including Alphabet and Amazon. This new venture is set to focus on startups in sectors related to the future of work and longevity.
Watt believes that the current landscape, marked by an AI boom and rising interest rates, presents an opportunity for a differentiated venture capital model. Share Ventures plans to create its own software and leverage advanced language models to streamline its internal processes. “You don’t need as large of funds, and you can get signal on an opportunity much earlier with much less capital,” he stated. “For us, that’s a great thing because we’re building companies from scratch using all of the most advanced tools.”
He noted that while many venture firms are investing in new technologies, few are effectively integrating and utilizing them in their processes. Watt emphasized that using innovative data and automation is a distinctive aspect of Share Ventures.
His interest in health and longevity stems from a personal tragedy—his mother passed away at the age of 49 when he was just 25. This experience, he explained, prompted him to reflect on his own mortality. “When you lose your mom at a young age, it forces you to think about your own mortality in a way that I wasn’t fully conscious of at the time,” he said.
Watt’s experience with the failure of MoviePass, which he recently addressed in the documentary “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” has only fueled his determination to continue innovating. He expressed a willingness to embrace the possibility of both failure and success in his future endeavors.