Brandon Hoffman
About Brandon Hoffman
Brandon is a Co-Founder & General Partner of Sunset Ventures, an early-stage venture fund based in Los Angeles & San Francisco focused on the future of gaming, finance, and commerce. Sunset backs uncommon founders using frontier technology to redefine the internet. Prior to Sunset, he was an operator & investor at Samsung Next, the software group of Samsung Electronics. He led R&D efforts for the Chief Innovation Officer around gaming, fintech, wellness, and Web3/AI and executed more than 20 early-stage deals. Notable deals include Ready Player Me, Wonder Dynamics, Yuga Labs (Bored Ape Yacht Club), The Sandbox, Wyre, Immunefi, and Prime Trust. Before Samsung, he was an equity research analyst at Morgan Stanley covering US Internet (gaming, ecommerce, social, adtech, payments), where he co-founded the Amazon Disruption Symposium. During his tenure, he worked on high-profile IPOs and initiations, such as Take-Two Interactive (maker of Grand Theft Auto), Blue Apron, Snap, and Spotify. Brandon started his finance career on “Main Street” in 2006 as a bank teller behind bulletproof glass at the local branch in downtown Anaheim. He used his wages to pay for college and to bootstrap his music company. He spent 10 years as an entrepreneur who built and operated a music production studio. He received a MBA degree in Finance from The Wharton School and a MPA in Behavioral Economics from Harvard Kennedy School. He got his BA from CSU Fullerton at age 20 after transferring from Cypress Community College. Brandon is personally committed to addressing the racial wealth gap in the US through the intersection of innovation and investment. He was a Sheila C. Johnson Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard, a fellow at Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), and a fellow at the Toigo Foundation. He currently serves on the board for Toigo’s Alumni Endowment. At Samsung, he launched the Diverse Founders Initiative and successfully put capital into the hands of Black, Latinx, and Women founders. He also co-founded Diverse Angels, an award-winning syndicate (“most inclusive early-stage investment platform”) that is one of the first and largest of its kind. For fun, he enjoys time with his family, traveling, RPG games, R&B/neo-soul music, BBQ, and Batman. Brandon currently lives in Los Angeles.