{"id":9676,"date":"2025-07-24T20:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T00:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.startupecosystem.ca\/news\/victor-lazarte-departs-benchmark-to-launch-own-venture-firm\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T20:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T00:13:17","slug":"victor-lazarte-departs-benchmark-to-launch-own-venture-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupecosystem.ca\/news\/victor-lazarte-departs-benchmark-to-launch-own-venture-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Lazarte Departs Benchmark to Launch Own Venture Firm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Lazarte, formerly a venture capitalist at Benchmark, has announced his departure from the firm to establish his own investment practice. Lazarte, who co-founded the mobile gaming company Wildlife Studios, plans to leverage his experience to create a new venture firm. During his tenure at Benchmark, he invested in several startups including Mercor, HeyGen, and Decart AI. His departure marks the second exit from Benchmark this year, following Sarah Tavel&#8217;s transition to a venture partner role. Benchmark is known for its equal partnership model, where all general partners share fees and returns equally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Lazarte, formerly a venture capitalist at Benchmark, has announced his departure from the firm to establish his own investment practice. Lazarte, who co-founded the mobile gaming company Wildlife Studios,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1434],"tags":[8744,419,11931,267,11932],"class_list":["post-9676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-global","tag-benchmark","tag-global-founder-news","tag-investment-practice","tag-venture-capital","tag-wildlife-studios"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Victor Lazarte Departs Benchmark to Launch Own Venture Firm - Startup Ecosystem Canada<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.startupecosystem.ca\/news\/victor-lazarte-departs-benchmark-to-launch-own-venture-firm\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Victor Lazarte Departs Benchmark to Launch Own Venture Firm - Startup Ecosystem Canada\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Victor Lazarte, formerly a venture capitalist at Benchmark, has announced his departure from the firm to establish his own investment practice. 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