Lightspeed Venture Partners is building out an in-house media operation centered on Claire Zau, a tech investor with more than 350,000 social media followers, per TechCrunch.

Zau, who has over 100,000 TikTok followers and more than 250,000 Instagram followers where she breaks down tech trends, joined Lightspeed earlier this year in a dual role spanning seed investing and media strategy. She now co-hosts “Lightwork,” a forthcoming weekly podcast on AI with Lightspeed CMO Josh Machiz, and helps lead “Lightspeed Launch,” the firm’s support program for new founders. She reports to both the investment and marketing sides of the firm.

Zau said her path to Lightspeed began with a direct message on Instagram. She started posting while working at GSV Ventures, aiming to make tech news accessible beyond the Silicon Valley insiders already served by creators like Dwarkesh Patel and Lex Fridman. “I felt there was an opportunity to basically establish a presence and credibility and build trust with this audience, even when they’re a couple years out from founding, even when they’re in college,” she said.

That audience-building has already produced concrete results. Zau said a job listing she shared for a GSV portfolio company drove more than 15,000 views and 700 completed applications.

Machiz framed the media push as a response to a shrinking journalism market. “There’s less and less traditional journalism out there because of layoffs and the consolidation in media,” he said. “If you’re a startup, it’s harder to get your story out there… we hope to also be able to provide in the new media world another opportunity to tell your story.”

According to Business Insider, Lightspeed’s approach mirrors a broader trend among venture firms building their own media arms. OpenAI recently acquired the livestream talk show “TBPN”, and Andreessen Horowitz bought the tech podcast network Turpentine and backed the X livestream show “Monitoring the Situation.” Machiz previously hired a TikTok comedian and helped build a podcast around an investor during his time at Redpoint Partners.

“There’s been a stigma attached to influencers as long as there’s been influencers,” Machiz said. Chris Harihar, a tech PR professional, noted that in-house creator content is still content marketing, which invites audience skepticism regardless of format.

Zau said she views her work as supplementing traditional journalism rather than replacing it, while also using her platform to counter what she sees as polarized tech coverage. “I think what I fear is that the mainstream audience is only hearing about very extreme headlines in both directions,” she said. “I would like to just help people understand the tech and help understand where things are going.”

Zau also credited her social reach with surfacing dissenting sentiment inside the AI investing bubble. She recalled posting about an AI startup investment that drew broad enthusiasm among investors, only to find through audience feedback that younger viewers were far more skeptical of AI. “It was, I would even say, humbling,” she said.

Machiz and Zau said Lightspeed’s media ambitions remain in early stages, with more formats potentially on the way. “Our goal is to be the place where hopefully future founders learn about venture, understand the ecosystem,” Machiz said. “We’re still early days.”

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Check Out Our Podcast