Nicole Quinn and Michael Blank to Lead Connect Ventures

CAA’s Adam Friedman Named Venture Partner

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Veteran investor Nicole Quinn and former Creative Artists Agency (CAA) executive Michael Blank have partnered to lead Connect Ventures, a new venture capital firm with origins as a joint venture between CAA and New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Quinn and Blank, who serve as Managing Partners and Co-Founders of Connect Ventures, will oversee the new firm, which focuses on investments in the Seed and Series A rounds of tech-enabled consumer businesses across media & entertainment, sports, gaming, health & wellness, and e-commerce & marketplaces. CAA’s Adam Friedman has been named a Venture Partner at Connect Ventures, serving as the day-to-day CAA lead for Connect Ventures.

“We believe Connect's platform gives us a unique advantage to add significant value to generational change companies. CAA unlocks cultural reach and insights, and NEA provides us with institutional best practices as we aim to help our companies achieve breakout velocity,” said Quinn and Blank. “We don’t just invest; we seek to connect and amplify.”

Operating at the intersection of culture and commerce, Connect Ventures originally began as an investment partnership between CAA and NEA in 2020. It sought to leverage CAA’s resources, relationships, and expertise spanning the global entertainment and sports landscape alongside the company building expertise of NEA’s experienced technology practice, with investments spanning an array of consumer categories, including TMRW Sports, OpenSea, Slash, and Jomboy Media, among others.

“We are so fortunate to partner with Nicole and Mike to launch Connect Ventures and thrilled that our partnership with NEA is taking this exciting next step. Nicole’s exceptional investment insight will be instrumental in driving the success of the firm and complements Mike’s deep experience as he transitions from his role at CAA, where he oversaw CAA’s involvement in Connect Ventures since the beginning, to this new leadership position full-time,” said Jim Burtson, President, CAA and Board Member, Connect Ventures. “Adam now steps into this important position as the agency’s primary representative for the new firm. Together, this exceptional team is well positioned to drive the growth of Connect Ventures.”

“We have been consistently impressed with Connect’s ability to attract high-quality emerging opportunities at the convergence of technology and media, entertainment, and sports,” said Tony Florence, Co-CEO, NEA. “CAA is a trusted partner with deep industry expertise that serves as a strong complement to NEA’s nearly 50-year history of technology investing and company building. We’re thrilled to continue partnering with Michael & Adam and are excited to welcome Nicole for this next chapter of the Connect Ventures journey.”

Connect Ventures’ portfolio includes investments in TMRW Sports and Music.AI, with Blank serving as a Board Director at both companies. To help accelerate the growth of its new primetime team golf league, TGL, TMRW Sports accessed the vast resources of CAA Sports, who spearheaded the league’s sponsorship sales effort, securing SoFi as the Presenting Sponsor, in addition to several Founding Partners; brokered the multi-year media rights deal with ESPN, in addition to landmark agreements with 16 media companies; and CAA Evolution spearheaded the sales process for the initial six teams. Music.AI’s platform Moises was recognized by Apple as the 2024 “iPad App of the Year,” a Google Play’s Users’ Choice Award winner, and one of the fastest-growing companies on the Inc. 5000 list. In August, the company announced AI Studio, its AI-native, browser-based audio editor with built-in generative capabilities, which puts artists in control, enabling them to add, replace, or modify instruments and shape every detail of their music exactly as they envision.

Quinn joins Connect Ventures after 10 years with Lightspeed Venture Partners. At Lightspeed, Quinn most recently co-led the Consumer team, working with beehiiv, Calm, Cameo, Character AI, Daily Harvest, Daybreak, Girlboss, Goop, Hungryroot, Lightyear, Multiverse, Rothy’s, and Zola, as well as Haus Labs, a beauty brand incubated by the multi-award-winning artist Lady Gaga, CAA, and Lightspeed. Previously, Quinn spent a decade at Morgan Stanley where she covered retail and internet, and worked on the IPOs of Facebook, Groupon, Prada and Pandora.

Blank departed CAA in October 2025, after serving 15 years in a variety of leadership positions. He most recently was Head of Consumer Investments, where he led a cross-departmental team of agents and executives, guiding CAA’s involvement in the initial investment partnership with NEA which led to more than thirty investments across the spectrum of consumer categories. Throughout his career, Blank has taken a scalable, systematic approach to innovation, architecting, building, and launching new businesses and areas of growth. Blank also helped launch CAA’s mobile division, spearheading all apps and games for clients, and Caravan, a Vancouver-based startup studio he helped co-found and served as a Board Director.

Friedman, who joined CAA in 2012, has played an important role in CAA’s previous investment partnership with NEA, where he serves as a Board Director for Jomboy Media and GHIA and also sourced and led the investments in B.J. Novak’s Chain and OpenSea.

For more information, visit www.connectventures.com.

ABOUT CREATIVE ARTISTS AGENCY (CAA)

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is a leading entertainment and sports agency, with global expertise in film, television, music, theatre, sports, digital media, publishing, sponsorship sales and endorsements, media finance, consumer investing, fashion, brand marketing and licensing, executive search, games, and philanthropy, among other areas. Distinguished by its culture of collaboration and exceptional client service, CAA’s diverse workforce identifies, innovates, and amplifies opportunities for the people and organizations that shape culture and inspire the world. CAA, founded in 1975, is headquartered in Los Angeles, and has offices in New York, Nashville, Memphis, Chicago, Miami, London, Munich, Geneva, Stockholm, Shanghai, and Beijing, among other locations globally. For more information, please visit www.caa.com.

ABOUT NEW ENTERPRISE ASSOCIATES (NEA)

New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. Founded in 1977, NEA has more than $28 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2025 and invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record of investing includes 284 portfolio company IPOs and more than 500 mergers and acquisitions. For more information, please visit www.nea.com.