New Capital for a New World: Rethinking Risk in the Creative Economy

Why traditional venture metrics fail creative businesses—and how The Agora Fund redefines potential
By The Agora Fund

The System Wasn’t Built for Us

"BLACK ART AND CULTURE WAS ONE OF THE THEMES AT THE ANNUAL BLACK EXPO HELD IN CHICAGO. ALSO PRESENT WERE BLACK PRODUCTS EDUCATION, TALENT, A VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE AND OTHER ASPECTS OF BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS. THE AIM IS TO MAKE BLACKS AWARE OF THEIR HERITAGE AND CAPABILITIES, AND HELP THEM TOWARDS A BETTER LIFE", Documerica 1978 | John H. White

Every time a creative founder walks into a room full of venture capitalists, they are expected to translate vision into spreadsheets, soul into scalability, and artistry into ARR.

And still, they’re told:
“It’s too risky.”
“It doesn’t scale.”
“It’s not venture-backable.”

Let me be clear:

Creative businesses aren’t too risky. The current metrics are too narrow.

The risk is not in the business.
The risk is in the system’s inability to understand it.

At The Agora Fund, we’re not here to fix founders.
We’re here to redefine the frameworks.

Because this new world we’re building—a world led by culture, design, story, and spirit—needs capital that moves differently.

The Creative Economy Doesn’t Play by VC Rules—And That’s the Point

“The Wholeness of Nature Reflected in the Mirror of Art”, the macrocosm showing the human body as the world soul, from the first volume of Robert Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi . . . Historia, 1617. | Robert Fludd

Traditional venture capital is obsessed with one thing: scalability.
CAC. LTV. TAM. Churn. ARR.

And while these may serve SaaS startups, they fail to capture the nuances—and the genius—of creative businesses.

Let’s break it down:

• A fashion designer may not have explosive short-term growth, but they can build a multi-decade brand with generational IP.

• A filmmaker’s ROI may not come from the first screening—but from streaming rights, licensing, and cultural cachet.

• A visual artist doesn’t scale like code—but their work accrues value, meaning, and market influence over time.

Creatives compound.
They don’t scale predictably—they resonate deeply.

And that’s a metric no cap table captures.

The False Narrative of “Too Early, Too Risky”

Here’s what we hear all the time:
“You’re too early.”
“It’s not de-risked yet.”
“There’s no proven market.”

But here’s what they don’t tell you:

Some of the most iconic creative brands—the ones now adored, acquired, or archived—were once invisible to investors blinded by short-term logic.

• The risk wasn’t in Off-White. It was in the inability to see Virgil’s genius.

• The risk wasn’t in A24. It was in the system that couldn’t measure creative IP.

• The risk wasn’t in Telfar. It was in funders who misunderstood a fashion revolution when it looked like a logo bag.

So we ask again:

Is it actually risky? Or is it just unfamiliar?

At The Agora Fund, we don’t penalize unfamiliarity.
We fund it.

Our Philosophy of Rethinking Risk

We believe that the riskiest thing you can do right now is ignore culture.
And the most underpriced asset class of the next decade?
Creative IP.

Here’s how we rethink risk:

1. We Evaluate Resonance, Not Just Revenue

We ask: Who is moved by this? Who does it activate? Is this artist creating culture, not just reacting to it?

2. We Invest in Founders With Taste, Not Just Traction

In creative markets, taste is strategy. Visionaries see the future before it exists. That’s where value lies.

3. We Understand Non-Linear Timelines

Creative companies are often slow burns. But when they ignite, they redefine categories. We’re patient—and prepared.

4. We Track Cultural Velocity

Some ideas don’t go viral—they go deep. We look at how quickly a brand infiltrates discourse, aesthetic trends, and public consciousness.

Creative Founders Are Not Undercapitalized Because They’re Risky—They’re Undercapitalized Because the System Wasn’t Designed for Them

Opera Reminiscences: Desdemona and Othello, 1829 | William Heath

Let’s call it what it is:
Aesthetic bias. Cultural elitism. Institutional rigidity.

The capital markets have spent decades underestimating:

• Black and Brown designers.

• Queer artists.

• Women founders in beauty, fashion, and film.

• Immigrant-led production houses.

Why? Because legacy capital doesn’t know how to measure legacy.

But we do.

We understand that a cultural founder is building more than a product.
They’re building a movement, a mythos, a brand that becomes a belief system.

That is not a liability. That is future-proofing.

So What Do We Fund?

We fund ideas with soul and strategy.

We fund founders who create beauty that breaks binaries.

We fund businesses that might not scale traditionally but will outlast everything around them.

We fund:

• Fashion labels that become cultural archives

• Indie film studios that shape narrative ecosystems

• Visual artists launching IP-driven collectives

• Hybrid media brands that reimagine ownership, influence, and commerce

Because we’re not investing in the known.
We’re investing in the inevitable.

A New Capital for a New World

The creative economy is not a side project.
It’s the blueprint of the next economic era.

We don’t need founders to become more fundable.
We need funders to become more imaginative.

We don’t need the creative class to prove their value.
We need capital to remember what value actually is.

At The Agora Fund, we’re building the capital stack we wish existed when we were starting.
One that values soul.
One that protects story.
One that doesn’t mistake unfamiliarity for failure.

This isn’t soft capital.
This is sovereign capital.

And it’s already reshaping the world.

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Written by The Agora Fund’s Founding Partner: Nina Orm