Richard Hess

Rick Hess is a veteran media, sports, and entertainment financier who has spent his career at the intersection of Hollywood and institutional capital. In 2008 he founded Evolution Media Capital (EMC) in partnership with Creative Artists Agency (CAA), building it into a merchant bank offering investment advisory, asset management, capital raising, industry research, and media-rights advisory services to clients across the media, sports, and entertainment industries. From roughly 2012 to 2019 he also led Evolution Media, the early-growth investing vehicle backed by TPG, overseeing global investments across sports, media, entertainment, and technology, and served as Co-Managing Partner until 2018.

Before founding Evolution, Hess created and led the Film Finance Group at CAA, where his team packaged, raised financing for, or sold more than 125 feature films — including Academy Award-winning titles such as *Crash*, *Brokeback Mountain*, *Good Night, and Good Luck*, and *The Tree of Life*. Earlier in his career he held executive positions at TriStar Pictures and The William Morris Agency and served as President of Phoenix Pictures and Propaganda Films, giving him deep operating experience across studio, agency, and production sides of the business.

In December 2019 Hess established Cobalt Capital, a multi-stage investment firm that partners with "the next generation of digital content, technology, consumer, and lifestyle businesses." Around 2020 he became active as an angel/early-stage investor in the Los Angeles startup ecosystem, beginning with his backing of the media startup dot.LA. He continues to be described as a "highly seasoned technology investor and strategic advisor," and serves as an advisor to firms such as Squared Circles.

• Invests at the intersection of media, entertainment, sports, and technology, extending into digital content, consumer, lifestyle, and financial-services businesses.
• Operates across the spectrum — from seed-stage angel checks (e.g., dot.LA's seed round) to larger growth/structured investments in sports and media rights holders (Range Media Partners).
• Emphasizes market-cycle awareness in decision-making. In his own words: *"One of the biggest challenges today is gauging where we are in this cycle, and making investment decisions based on the knowledge that the current market conditions won't continue forever."*
• Brings a structuring and dealmaking orientation — his background is in sourcing, structuring, and executing complex transactions and film-finance packages, so he gravitates toward businesses where capital structure, rights, and industry relationships are central to value creation.