Tulco

In 2017, after building and selling Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion, Thomas Tull embarked on a new venture. He founded Tulco, a private holding company with a unique playbook. Joined by Vice Chairman Marty Willhite, a former partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson and COO of Legendary, the duo set out to find established companies in traditional, under-innovated industries. Their strategy was to acquire these businesses and inject them with a powerful dose of technology, specifically artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics, to unlock growth. The firm wasn't a typical venture capital or private equity fund. Instead of a broad portfolio, Tulco took significant ownership stakes and partnered deeply with company management, providing both capital and an in-house AI lab staffed with scientists from institutions like MIT and Carnegie Mellon. This hands-on approach aimed to create a competitive advantage in sectors not typically served by cutting-edge tech. A significant chapter in Tulco's story came in July 2020. After a successful year-long partnership where they jointly launched an AI-backed insurance brokerage called Altway, Tulco's AI insurance business was acquired by Acrisure. The deal, valued at $400 million and structured as a stock-for-stock trade, made Tulco a major minority shareholder in Acrisure and positioned Tull as the Chairman of the new Acrisure Technology Group, setting the stage to apply their model on a much larger scale.