Steve Aoki’s Next Big Drop Is a Venture Fund: From Cake Tosses to Cap Tables
Steve Aoki’s Next Big Drop Is a Venture Fund: From Cake Tosses to Cap Tables
Music - November 22, 2025
Aoki Labs marks the DJ’s evolution from festival icon to thesis-driven investor focused on wellness, longevity, and human performance.
For most people, Steve Aoki will always be the airborne DJ — mid-jump, mid-cake toss, mid-tour — the human embodiment of high-voltage chaos. But while the world watches the strobe lights, Aoki has been quietly building something else backstage: a venture platform aimed at the future of human performance.
In July 2025, he made it official. Aoki Labs, his dedicated investment arm, launched as a structured platform with a surprisingly mature thesis: companies at the intersection of entertainment, wellness, consumer innovation, and longevity. Not a celebrity dabbling with angel checks. A fund. A real one. And, according to the launch materials, “with its first fund now closed and capital actively being deployed.”
That last part matters. It signals this isn’t a branding exercise; it’s an allocation strategy.
Aoki has been preparing for this shift long before he ever called it “venture.” He built Dim Mak Records out of a college apartment into a global culture engine. He turned himself into a multimedia IP universe — albums, comic books, documentaries, Web3 experiments, and a small mountain of brand collaborations. He’s been a public guinea pig for longevity hacks, wellness routines, and cognitive-performance rituals. Aoki Labs is simply the moment where all of those obsessions get formalized into a fund structure.
He framed it clearly in his launch announcement:
“This is about channeling the same energy and curiosity I’ve brought to music into a new chapter — one focused on investing in things that make life better.”
That line isn’t fluff; it’s a thesis statement. Aoki Labs isn’t trying to pick the next enterprise SaaS unicorn. It’s trying to pick the companies that will shape how people feel, think, recover, connect, and live longer.
The early portfolio reads like a map of modern human optimization. There’s Neuro, the functional gum and mints company built around focus and energy. There’s Freaks of Nature, Kelly Slater’s skincare line that merges wellness and outdoor culture. There’s Audio Media Grading and Mantel, part of the rising ecosystem around collectibles, heritage music, and fan identity. These aren’t random investments; they’re touchpoints in Aoki’s own life — performance, ritual, longevity, creative expression, community.
The fund hasn’t publicly disclosed its size, and Aoki Labs hasn’t revealed check ranges or stage preferences. But what they have shared is intention: a focus on startups reimagining wellbeing, mental performance, consumer behavior, and the emerging edge where health meets AI. It’s a tight thesis, built around a future Aoki already inhabits.
And the platform is structured like a real firm. Aoki Labs has a CEO — Tashi Nakanishi — and longtime Aoki partners Matt Colon and Dougie Bohay helping guide strategy. Aoki himself has said that he’s evolved from making investment decisions with “a small, informal group” into building “a more thoughtful team” to vet opportunities. That’s the turning point where celebrity investing becomes disciplined venture practice.
What gives Aoki Labs an advantage isn’t just the capital — it’s the cultural distribution. Aoki performs 200 shows a year. He reaches 65 million people globally. Tens of millions stream his music monthly. That reach isn’t a marketing lever; it’s an infrastructure layer. For a startup in wellness, longevity, or consumer innovation, plugging into Aoki’s ecosystem is like being handed a global testbed.
It’s also part of a larger shift happening across culture. Creators aren’t just entertainers anymore; they’re investors, founders, ecosystem builders. They’re turning attention into insight and insight into ownership. Aoki is part of that wave — someone who realized that if you can predict the next sound or next subculture, maybe you can also predict the next consumer behavior.
He’s not leaving music behind; he’s extending it into a new dimension where curiosity becomes capital. Aoki Labs is the bridge between the life he’s lived onstage and the future he wants to build offstage — a world where longevity isn’t fringe, wellness isn’t an aesthetic, and performance isn’t just something captured in a festival livestream.
Steve Aoki spent twenty years spotting what was next in culture. Aoki Labs is his bet that he can do the same thing with companies.
And if he’s right, the future of wellbeing may come with his name somewhere on the term sheet.
