AJ Scaramucci’s Solari Capital emerges from stealth with $350 million deployed and a case that companies stay private too long

Hi, it’s Amanda Gerut, filling in for Allie. AJ Scaramucci’s collectibles company paid $2 million for a first-appearance Iron Man comic. It also bought a record-setting Pokémon card. 

Ask him about them, and the conversation circles back to a problem everyone reading this knows well. It can take a very long time for a startup to go public. 

In Scaramucci’s case, he wants to give ordinary investors a shot at a market they’ve been locked out of, which is art, dinosaur bones, trading cards, and other expensive collectibles. He connected that exposure to a problem he sees with early value-creation: It often remains locked away inside venture and growth-equity portfolios rather than public markets, as my colleague, business editor Nick Lichtenberg, learned when he interviewed Scaramucci for his exclusive story yesterday. 

Scaramucci’s venture firm, Solari Capital, emerged from stealth on Thursday with $350 million deployed since its founding across early-stage deals, late-stage growth, and companies it incubates in-house. His backers include SV Angel founder Ron Conway, Breyer Capital’s Jim Breyer, Bain Capital co-chairman Stephen Pagliuca, former Alphabet chief executive Eric Schmidt, and entrepreneur and author Peter Diamandis. Scaramucci is the son of SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci. 

As Nick reported, Solari Capital’s big idea is what Scaramucci calls “programmable reality.” The argument is that compounding computing power will make biology, intelligence, physical matter, and money engineerable the way software is. His portfolio is a show-and-tell of how programmable reality works: xAI (now inside SpaceX), Suno, Tessera Therapeutics, Varda Space, and Northwood........

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