Table of Contents
Laurence "Lo" Toney did not build his name in the conventional mold of Silicon Valley venture capitalists. He came up through the operating trenches—product management at Nike and eBay, general management at Zynga where he ran Poker, the company's largest franchise, and an early stint in institutional money management before anyone was calling him a VC. By the time he landed at GV, formerly Google Ventures, as a partner, he had spent two decades learning how technology companies actually work from the inside.
What he did next was less obvious. Rather than stay inside the safety of one of the world's most well-resourced investment platforms, Toney incubated a new firm inside GV and spun it out as his own independent vehicle in 2018. The idea was specific: back emerging venture fund managers who are women or people of color, and co-invest directly into the best companies inside those funds' portfolios. He named the firm Plexo Capital, after the Portuguese word for intricate vascular network. The name was intentional.
Since then, Toney has backed companies across media, esports, health diagnostics, payroll infrastructure and artificial intelligence. He is also a CNBC contributor and a regular voice on technology market dynamics. These are the companies that sit at the core of his portfolio.
1. Plexo Capital
Plexo Capital is the engine of everything Toney has built since leaving GV. He founded it in 2017, incubated it inside Google Ventures, and completed its spinout as an independent firm in 2018. The firm operates a hybrid model: it takes LP stakes in seed-stage venture funds led by diverse general partners, and invests directly into companies sourced from those funds' portfolios.
The first fund closed at $42.5 million, backed by Alphabet, Intel Capital, Cisco Investments, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Ford Foundation and the Hampton University Endowment, among others. A second fund followed. The firm's underlying portfolio now covers more than 900 companies across North America, Africa and Latin America. In late 2024, Toney disclosed that Plexo had invested in OpenAI, with follow-on investments placed at larger sizes each time. By his own account, it became the firm's largest single investment to date.
2. Blavity
Blavity is a Los Angeles-based media company built for Black millennials. Toney and GV backed it at the Series A stage, with Plexo co-investing alongside the GV position. The company has since expanded into event production, travel content and job placement for Black professionals. It remains one of the most visible media brands in its category in the United States and one of Plexo's earlier direct bets on culturally specific media as a durable business model.
3. PlayVS
PlayVS builds the infrastructure layer for high school and collegiate esports in the United States. Toney backed it at the Series B stage. The Los Angeles-based company partners with gaming publishers to create official competitive leagues on school campuses, operating as the connective tissue between game developers, schools and student athletes. At the time of Plexo's investment, esports at the scholastic level was still largely informal. PlayVS was, and remains, the platform that gave it institutional structure.
4. Wrapbook
Wrapbook is a payroll and production management software company built specifically for the entertainment industry. It handles crew payments, benefits administration and compliance for film and television productions — a segment that has historically run on outdated paper-heavy systems. Toney's investment came before the company reached unicorn status in 2021, making it one of Plexo's most publicly recognized wins. Wrapbook serves major studios and independent production houses across the United States.
5. iSono Health
iSono Health is a Puerto Rico-based medical technology company developing automated breast ultrasound devices designed to make imaging accessible in low-resource clinical settings. Plexo backed it at the seed stage. The company's technology is aimed at addressing diagnostic gaps in markets where access to conventional imaging infrastructure is limited. Toney's investment in iSono reflects the firm's stated interest in health companies where the market failure is structural, not just technical. Plexo's most recent recorded investment, made in early 2025, was a follow-on into iSono.
6. Ingressive Capital
Ingressive Capital is a Lagos-based venture capital firm focused on early-stage technology startups across Africa. Toney backed it as a limited partner, making it one of Plexo Capital's clearest expressions of its global mandate. The fund backs founders across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and other markets. Plexo's support of Ingressive is consistent with its broader thesis: that diverse fund managers operating in underserved ecosystems generate deal flow that larger, geographically concentrated firms cannot access. Ingressive has since grown into one of the more active seed-stage investors on the continent.
