TIA Ventures August Newsletter

It’s The People x New Podcast Episode!

Keith Bank Founder of KB Partners on Sports Investing: Pattern Recognition, Pivots, and Betting on the Right People

This month on our It’s The People interview series, we sat down with Keith Bank, founder of KB Partners, to talk about how decades of investing in sports, tech, and real estate have shaped his outlook.

Here are a few takeaways we loved…

🧠 Pattern Recognition Comes with Time: “The more deals you see, the more you know what great looks like.” Keith relies less on checklists and more on intuition—honed through years of working with operators, not just founders. The best deals often come from recognizing familiar signals in unfamiliar places.

🔁 Pivoting Isn’t Failure—It’s the Game: “The reality is, your original idea is usually wrong. But the great entrepreneurs find their way to the right one.” From first-time founders to seasoned execs, Keith emphasizes the importance of adaptability. Many of his best investments were born out of pivots—by founders who listened to the market and moved fast.

🏀 Why Sports Is Still Underpriced: “You can’t disintermediate a stadium. You can’t digitize the passion of fans.” Keith believes sports ownership is a long-game with brand and culture as leverage. That defensibility, paired with the rise of digital media and fan monetization, makes sports a category he’s doubling down on.

💡 Bet on the Doers: “We invest in people who make things happen—who are always shipping, testing, and selling.” Great founders are resilient, curious, and obsessive about solving real problems. Keith looks for founders who out-execute, not just out-pitch.

Portfolio Company News

Interviewing Portfolio Company - ACKWEST Group

From Surveys to Conversations: How ACKWEST Group is Changing the Market Research Game

In our recent podcast with Keith Price and Hugh Davis from ACKWEST Group, they shared what “data quality” really means in their industry - and why their approach stands apart from legacy players.

• Customer Experience First: Their teams operate less like project managers and more like strategists - anticipating issues, responding faster, and ensuring every client interaction feels seamless.

• Rethinking Surveys: Traditional long, repetitive surveys are on their way out. ACKWEST is creating conversational experiences, using AI and machine learning to generate richer insights without exhausting participants.

• Human Relationships: Instead of treating participants as “samples,” they see them as members - remembering preferences, personalizing follow-ups, and building genuine trust. As Hugh put it, engaging with 50,000 people a day is like filling a baseball stadium - you can’t lose sight of the human impact behind the numbers.

The result? A model of quality rooted in strategy, technology, and true human connection.

Open 👩🏽‍💻 Roles

🚀 Hot Jobs Alert!

Here are some open roles from our portfolio companies that just closed fresh rounds of funding 💸—meaning now’s the perfect time to join them on their next chapter. Whether you’re into product, growth, or engineering, there’s something here for every builder 🔧

👇 Check out the roles and apply before they’re gone!