Sipping a cold drink in the Florida heat, this TechCrunch reporter watched from the paddock as founders, investors and wealthy individuals interacted in search of deals. Conversation was almost uninterrupted, except for occasional glances at the track as drivers chased the checkered flag while trapped in multimillion-dollar cars.
F1 weekends are held over three days, culminating in a race. In between are kickoffs, soirées, cocktail parties, dinners, and nightclub takeovers, a space where business and entertainment blur. Events like this, where wealth is concentrated, have historically been where business transactions take place. However, the popularity of the F1 paddock has increased in recent years, especially among start-ups and ventures.
“This is a hot spot for anyone with access who wants to close a deal,” said one founder, recalling being brought into the paddock by a venture firm two years ago.
Founder Chandler Malone said he didn't even enter the race this year. He only participated in a few side events. There were so many startups hosting events, far more than usual, he said.
Investor Marel Evans also told TechCrunch: “Whatever the name of the fund was, there was someone there to host the clients.” “A lot of people missed Milken in F1 Miami.”
F1 teams were once sponsored by big oil, tobacco, banks and alcohol companies, but now they have embraced a new railway giant. Sprinkled with logos from AI, cloud computing and enterprise companies, this season's F1 team livery is a literal sign of where the money is.
The past five years reflect that change. Meanwhile, Oracle became the title sponsor of the Red Bull Racing Team, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team entered into a multi-year partnership with Microsoft, Coreweave became Aston Martin Aramco's official AI cloud partner, Anthropic partnered with Williams Racing, Palantir and IBM partnered with Ferrari, AWS began providing data analytics to F1, and audio app ElevenLabs and fintech Revolut partnered with Audi.
Some VC and PE firms also hold stakes in F1 teams, including Doriton Capital's acquisition of Williams Racing in 2020 and a €200m investment in Alpine by backers Otro Capital, Redbird Capital Partners and Maximum Effort Investments.
Hannan Happi, founder of climate startup Exowatt, credits the 2020 Netflix F1 show “Drive to Survive” with sparking viewer interest. But the tech industry has been gaining momentum more recently, “in the last three or four years, really,” Happi said. He cited all the big tech companies that have entered the sport, including crypto and AI brands. “Where the sponsors go, management will follow,” he said.
Concentration of corporate buyers
Image credit: Chris Arjoon / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images
So it's no surprise that TechCrunch ran into Lightspeed Venture Partners' CMO Josh Matiz. He explained that founders and executives from many of the startups in the company's portfolio are also roaming the paddock. Their goal is to strike some corporate deals with other startups and tech giants, he said.
TechCrunch met Machiz at IBM's paddock, and he said the company actually has a formal program in place with the entity that owns F1 in three U.S. cities: Austin, Las Vegas, and Miami. As part of that program, he worked with Aston Martin Aramco and other F1 teams to help introduce Lightspeed's founders to these organizations and corporate customers. The CIO and CISO stand next to the CEO in the paddock, and the room is small enough that people can actually chat with each other, Matisse said. Aston Martin, like other F1 teams, is actively looking for ways to leverage the latest technology and meet the founders behind it.
Technology has always been at the heart of F1, driving advances in consumer technology and vehicle safety. For a team to stay ahead, it's important to be proactive, and these days, if a startup like Anthropic grows large enough, the team can even attract future sponsors.
Matisse called Lightspeed the first company to formalize this type of partnership, and said 10 portfolio companies participated in the Miami race. And it paid off, he said. One of the company's blockchain companies signed a handshake deal over the weekend, and one of the company's AI infrastructure startups signed two more. Two were introduced by Aston, and the third was a coincidence.
“Aston Martin's technical team also opened up to the founders to discuss what they were looking for in a builder,” Matisse continued.
Machiz, who previously worked at Redpoint, joined Lightspeed just a few months ago. One of the first things he wanted to do was challenge the idea of a “traditional founder retreat.” There, startups and their investors spent time apart, talking, catching up, and sometimes getting bored.
“The consistent request from founders was always the same: 'Help me meet more buyers,'” Matiz said, recalling a time when he once helped plan a founders retreat. “Another weekend in Sonoma will never do that, and the reviews have always been that way.” [it was] While it's nice to spend time with and meet tech luminaries and VIP speakers, they would have rather been meeting and building with customers. ”
Instead of another exit, he took his Lightspeed Venture portfolio into F1. After all, this is “one of the highest concentrations of corporate buyers,” he said.
“The opportunity was clear,” Matiz continued. “We didn’t just want to show up, we wanted to build a structure around it.”
Farooq Malik, founder of Lightspeed's Rain, said he managed to close a deal, connect with another potential customer, and meet another founder who wanted to use the product as part of Rain's ERP (enterprise resource planning). “This model was more interactive, with more organic interactions,” Malik says.
It's not just startup founders. Investor Evans said supporters are tired of going to dinners and attending conferences. “They want a real-world experience, so why not do it in F1, which is now the fastest growing company in the world?” he wondered.
Evans said top money makers like to see how their business world intertwines with the technology used by automotive teams.
“We've seen different brands showcasing how they're leveraging AI for drivers and some of the technology they're using in their cars,” he said.
“Everyone there has capital.”
Investor Impana Suri said he went to Miami this year to look for deals, noting that over the past five years, Miami has become a gathering place for tech people.
“Sponsors followed, investors followed, founders followed. This is where people are right now,” Suri said.
In fact, the race is so fast that the most important part of the three-day weekend is what happens before and after the race, she said. Suri flew alone, met some friends, and then received an invitation to the McLaren Paddock and other brand activations (which she called microconferences), where she met other executives, allocators and founders.
“It's all about price as a filter,” she said of how expensive tickets are. “By the time you walk in, the room is sorted for you. Everyone there has the capital, the deal flow, or the kind of track record that justifies dropping six figures on a weekend.”
Like Matiz, she also noted how small the space is, a pressure cooker of people silently trying to outdo each other in conversation.
“Trades are introduced, names are dropped, things are teased. Over the weekend, we heard pitches in all areas, including defense and CPG,” she said.
Exowatt founder Happi said F1 champion-turned-investor Nico Rosberg stopped by the company's headquarters over the Miami Grand Prix weekend to see what the team was building.
Hapi said F1 symbolizes things that technology also has in common: “engineering excellence, rapid iteration, and a willingness to spend big to win.”
The overall aesthetic of the sport matches the startup world, he continued. He added that the fact that it is international in nature and the event usually lasts several days gives people time to close a deal if they wish.
“F1 is inherently a luxury sport and that attracts a certain type of person,” Happi said, adding that he had heard of deals being struck “on the fly from helicopters to hotels to circuits”.
“And it doesn't hurt that Miami and Las Vegas, two strong races, suddenly have really fun, entertainment-driven cities,” he continued.
Miami has launched the Lightspeed Aston Martin program, but Matisse hopes it will continue throughout the season, at least in the US races, with the final one being in Las Vegas in November. After that, he hopes to expand the program internationally and plans to take a small group of European founders to Silverstone, England, later this year.
“In AI, distribution is speed,” he said. “The companies that win are the ones that can get founders in front of buyers and close deals faster than anyone else.”
Update: Article has been updated to include that Lightspeed has a formal program with Formula 1 for three races in the United States.
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