Kutcher and Oseary poured $1 million each of their own money into the fund, while Burkle contributed $8 million. A-Grade also received backing from experienced tech executives like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, as well as businessman Mark Cuban.
A-Grade focused on early-stage investments, according to TechCrunch. O'Malley Greenburg wrote that these start-ups had to have three defining characteristics: founders A-Grade wanted to work with; a problem-solving mission statement that would make the most of time; and a business model A-Grade could grow.
While there were a few failed investments along the way, such as BlackJet and Fab.com, A-Grade made many successful ones: $500,000 into Uber, $2.5 million into Airbnb, $3 million into Spotify, $300,000 into Warby Parker, and $1.5 million into Houzz, among many others. These are all multi-billion dollar companies today.