Venture Building · New Orleans
McMahon Ventures is a New Orleans venture-building firm. Our work spans technology, energy, healthcare and financial services, and we have co-founded companies in several of those markets. Today our focus is AI.
The Approach
James spent the first part of his career evaluating and closing energy investments, then left corporate finance to start companies of his own. We know how a business looks to the people funding it, and we know what it takes to make payroll in the early years.
We help shape the idea into a company, build the financial model and the capital plan behind it, and recruit the people who will run it. Then we stay in the work until the company is up and running.
The Ventures
Since 2014 we have co-founded and helped launch companies in healthcare technology, public health and AI. In most of them James ran the financial side: the first model, the capital plan, the partnership terms and the operating budget.
Artificial Intelligence
Plainbox Studio helps operating companies become AI-Native. Every engagement is led by one of the founding partners, and the work runs in three streams at once: Discovery & Design, Architecture and Build. Clients come out with their company's knowledge written down in a form agents can use, and with production agents working inside the business.
Current Flagship · Founding Partner
Venture Creation
A New Orleans venture-creation and transformation firm that designs, builds and launches companies, then helps them scale. James was a partner and the firm's CFO, leading the financial modeling and economic analysis behind its ventures and client work.
Partner
Clinical Laboratories
A technology-enabled clinical partnership platform that gives doctors and medical centers access to a vetted network of the country's leading clinical laboratories and subspecialty pathologists.
Technology Leadership
Population Health
Built during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kallaco combined diagnostic testing, health technology and population-health software into one platform so employers, schools and health systems could test and monitor the health of their communities.
Founding Member
Public Health Reporting
Built to expand Electronic Laboratory Reporting across the U.S. Working with the Association of Public Health Laboratories and its AIMS platform, Qvive let labs send results in the format each state and local public-health agency requires.
Founding Member
Patient Engagement
A patient-engagement company that paired trained care-team members with custom technology to deliver Chronic Care Management and Patient Navigation to physician practices, with monthly encounter notes synced to each practice's EHR.
Founding Member
The Transactions
Before starting companies, James spent seven years at The Shaw Group and, after its sale, Chicago Bridge & Iron. At Shaw Capital he led valuation, due diligence and deal structuring on energy and infrastructure investments, and he served as a board observer for two portfolio companies after closing.
Nuclear Power
A planned 2,700 MW expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear plant, developed by Nuclear Innovation North America using Toshiba's Advanced Boiling Water Reactor.
$100M
Convertible Credit FacilityDiligence & structuring
Landfill Gas
Three landfill gas projects near Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The plants collect and clean landfill gas and sell it into the natural gas pipeline system.
$28M
InvestmentScenario & cash-flow analysis
Biomass Power
A 20 MW wood-fired biomass power plant in Rabun Gap, Georgia, selling its output to a Georgia electric cooperative under a long-term power purchase agreement.
$21.5M
InvestmentValuation, diligence & structuring
Biomass Power
A 14 MW biomass power plant in Telogia, Florida, running on wood waste from the region's forest industry and selling its power under a long-term agreement.
$12.2M
InvestmentValuation, diligence & structuring
Waste to Energy
A startup that turns municipal sewage sludge into energy through gasification. Its first system went in at the City of Sanford's wastewater treatment plant in Florida.
Undisclosed
Follow-on InvestmentValuation & structuring
Engineering & Construction
Chicago Bridge & Iron's acquisition of The Shaw Group, completed in February 2013, combining two of the major U.S. engineering and construction firms serving the energy industry.
$3B
MergerValuation for management & board
The Founder
James started McMahon Ventures in 2014 after a career in energy finance and M&A. Since then he has co-founded Kallaco, Qvive Health and CaseSherpa, served as a partner and CFO of Spivey & Company, and helped found Plainbox Studio, where he leads AI strategy and training program design.
His corporate career ran through Shaw Capital and Chicago Bridge & Iron, where he directed mergers and acquisitions. He holds a BS in Management from the University of New Orleans and an MBA from Tulane University's A.B. Freeman School of Business.
James and his wife, Erica, have two daughters and live in New Orleans, Louisiana.
New Orleans
The McMahon family came to New Orleans in 1839 and has been starting businesses here for more than 180 years. Those include P.J. McMahon & Sons, a funeral home the family ran for nearly 140 years, Garden of Memories Cemetery, Southeastern States Life Insurance Company, and the fire protection company Herbert S. Hiller founded in 1919, known today as The Hiller Companies.
On October 29, 1912, P.J. McMahon & Sons held the first automobile funeral in the city, using the first motor hearse owned by a New Orleans funeral business. James is the latest McMahon to build companies here, and we still do all of our work from New Orleans.
Service
James served as an enlisted airman and rose to the rank of Master Sergeant (E‑7). His deployments included Northern Watch and Provide Comfort in Turkey, Commando Sling in Singapore, Maple Flag in Canada and Noble Eagle in the U.S.
Veteran-Owned Business
Connect
If you have a company in mind, or one that needs its next stage built, we would like to hear about it. Email is the best way to reach us.
Email James