Gerard N. Casale Jr.

Gerard N. Casale, Jr. was born in New Britain, Connecticut and is an American venture capitalist, lawyer and businessman living in Santa Monica, California.

Casale is the founder of TYLT VENTURES--- a Santa Monica-based venture capital firm holding investments in start-up companies like Flexport, Thrive Market, Tala, MeUndies, Clutter, TodayTix, BeautyCon, and many others.   Casale also assists in the operation of many business entities including those in the wireless accessory, food packaging/processing and dental technology fields.   For over 25 years, Casale practiced law and was a partner at a range of firms from his own practice to large national law firms with an emphasis on corporate and securities law.   His last firm partnership was at TroyGould located in Century City, Los Angeles, CA- before leaving to found and operate Tylt Ventures in 2013.

The purpose of Tylt Ventures is to seek investments capable of outsized returns.   The formula applied at Tylt is to seek founders who are whole heartedly focused on a mission with a business plan capable of significant ROI and carrying a logical and well thought out execution plan.   Typically, Casale seeks investments in businesses that he and his partners can understand and also provide value-added service and/or advice.  

Early Life

Casale was born in 1967 in a close-knit Italian-American family in New Britain, CT.  His father was a salesman at The Fenn Manufacturing Co. in New Britain, CT who later worked his way up the ranks to become SVP Sales and retired after working at Fenn nearly 50 years.    His mother was a guidance counselor at a middle school in Torrington, Connecticut until she retired in 2004.    Casale grew up in Torrington, Connecticut and played football at Torrington High School, enjoyed the Thespian Society as an actor in various school plays, played concert classical piano since age 5 and was a member of the Honor Society and many other groups and clubs.   His paternal grandfather was an government appointed Judge at the State Superior Court in Connecticut in the mid 1970’s and was very influential in the State.   His maternal grandfather was a chemical engineer and one of the first Italian Americans to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the time and went on to work for the US Government as an engineer in Boston, MA.

Education

Casale graduated from Fairfield University in Fairfield Connecticut receiving a proper Jesuit education and B.A. degree in Economics in 1989.  He went on to Pepperdine University School of Law to graduate with his Juris Doctorate in 1992 and met his now-wife Siemene at that time.    Casale and his wife Siemene Casale were married in 1996 in Los Angeles at the Biltmore Hotel and went on to have three (3) daughters.

Career

Casale started his law career in 1992 as an associate litigator with the law firm Booth Mitchel & Strange in Los Angeles upon receiving his law degree and passing the California State Bar examination.    In 1994, Casale launched his own law firm, Casale Alliance, LLP, with a partner and immediately began focusing on business and corporate transactional law.        Throughout the years of his law practice, Casale has represented hundreds of firms and individuals and been a partner of in excess of a billion dollars of financing and M&A activity.

In 2000, Casale founded X-Laboratories, an incubator partnership between Hughes Research Labs, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Motors.   After organizing and finding the funding for X-Labs, Casale was asked to manage the company as its CEO and after 4 years X-Labs was sold to a Los Angeles based hedge fund.

From 2004-2011 Casale was engaged as a partner in the Dreier law firm and a member at TroyGould of Los Angeles where he was active as an M&A and transactional attorney.

In 2013 Casale launched Tylt Ventures and has made over 40 investments as of the date of this writing.

Casale has taught as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University School of Law from time to time teaching Venture Law and related topics.

Education and Philosophy

Casale has a philosophy that all of the world’s problems would be ultimately only solved through widely distributed access to proper education.   To that end, he was a founding board member of Crown Prep Academy in South Los Angeles, a charter school with a mission to bring quality education to the under-served in its area.    Crown Prep has been a success in achieving significantly higher overall testing scores than its predecessor and has since graduated many college focused children grades 5-8.