Meet Moses Haughton “Moses Stone” Jr of Ventured

Today we’d like to introduce you to Moses Haughton “Moses Stone” Jr.

Moses , we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve always been a creator first. I was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and I’ve been making music since I was 13. The person who started it all was my older cousin, Jamar J. Adair. He taught me how to write and pulled me into music when I was young. Jamar was murdered in Washington, D.C., when he was just 19. Losing him to that kind of violence changed me. Everything I’ve built since carries a piece of him.

For most of my life, music was the work. I became a Billboard-charting producer, and I was the first rapper-singer to compete on NBC’s The Voice. One of the moments I’m proudest of is being the voice of McDonald’s 2019 “Black & Positively Golden” campaign and its anthem, “We Golden.” That work earned me a Clio Award.

The real turning point came after the TV shows. Once I stepped off that stage, I started paying attention to what happens behind the scenes, on the business side of music. I learned about publishing, royalties, rights and copyrights, and how sync works when a song is placed in a TV commercial, a film or a campaign. That changed how I saw everything. I could see the difference between getting paid once for a show and creating something one time that keeps paying you for years. People in the industry call it mailbox money. A song isn’t just a song. It’s an asset. You create it once, you protect it, and it can keep working for you for the rest of your life.

As I got older, I realized that lesson wasn’t only about music. It applies to names, to brands and to every kind of intellectual property. Your IP is your power, and it’s what gives a business real longevity. I’ve also seen countless stories of creators and founders who lost control of their IP, or watched it get bought out and taken over by private equity firms and bigger companies. A name people loved for decades can end up in hands that don’t understand why it mattered in the first place.

That’s where Ventured came from. I started Ventured in 2026 as an IP brand-management company. We revive iconic brands from the past and launch new ones, and we treat every brand as a long-term cultural asset. We’re based in Las Vegas and work internationally.

We also have big goals. Companies like Authentic Brands Group, WHP Global and PVH have shown how much value a well-run brand portfolio can create, building billion-dollar businesses around brands people love. That’s the trajectory we’re setting for Ventured. We’re early, and we’re building it step by step, but our aim is to grow into a brand-management company of that caliber, with culture and creators at the center of it.

And we’re building it differently. Ventured runs on AI from day one. We’ve built our own in-house AI system, which we call Ventured’s super intelligence, to support everything from research and brand development to marketing and operations. It lets a focused team move with the speed and reach of a much bigger company, and it’s a big part of how we plan to grow faster than a traditional brand house could. Over the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about the brands we’re bringing forward.

As a Black founder, I know what it means to see someone who looks like you building something of their own, and I take that seriously.

I’m still early in this chapter, and I’m learning every day. But everything music taught me, like patience, storytelling and knowing who you’re making something for, shows up in how I build this company.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not at all, but I don’t really think of the hard parts as obstacles. I see them as challenges, speed bumps and chances to learn. Every one of them has made me sharper and taught me something most people never get to see.

The biggest shift was going from the creative side to the business side. On stage and in the studio, I knew the room. In brand management, I had to learn a new language, with rights, contracts and partnerships, and prove myself all over again in a new industry.

Even while I was in music, I never stayed in one lane. I got into real estate, TV and film sync, and running an agency, always building multiple streams of income. Before Ventured, I built a company called ArtSky, an entertainment company and agency, and grew a small team in Los Angeles and Hollywood. ArtSky gave me some amazing moments, and it taught me lessons that prepared me for everything I’m doing now.

For a long time, I thought being all over the place was holding me back. Everyone around me could say, ‘I do this, and only this.’ I couldn’t. But the more I challenged myself, the more I realized that versatility was the advantage. Today I can walk into a room full of people from completely different industries and actually speak their language.

That’s where the name Ventured comes from. I ventured into so many different things, and every one of them taught me something. The other big lesson was that you can’t do it all yourself, and you can’t wear every hat forever. If you want to build something bigger, you have to focus.

Ventured gives me the best of both worlds. Our model is built around partnering with best-in-class licensees and operators who handle what they do best, while we focus on the brands themselves. That lets me focus on one thing, Ventured, and still be part of music, fashion, lifestyle, home services and whatever comes next. Moving from ArtSky to Ventured is the most exciting chapter of my career, and it gives me everything I’ve always wanted to build.

The biggest thing all of it taught me was the psychology of brands. People rarely buy a product for what it cost to make. They buy how it makes them feel. Once you learn what things really cost to produce, you realize the price tag was never about the materials. It’s about the name, the memory and the feeling. You’re not just buying the shirt. You’re buying the story stitched into it. Understanding that is the whole business.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Ventured is an intellectual property holding, brand management and licensing company built to acquire, develop and scale consumer-facing brands and cultural assets through an asset-light operating model.

Our platform is organized across Brands, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Studios and Digital, giving us the ability to extend intellectual property across consumer products, experiences, media, content and digital channels while partnering with specialized operators for manufacturing, distribution and retail.

Across its portfolio and affiliated brand properties, Ventured reaches a collective audience of approximately 1M+ social media followers and has generated more than 100M+ digital impressions. By combining owned intellectual property, audience reach and a growing network of licensees, operators and strategic partners, Ventured transforms brand recognition into scalable consumer products, new categories and recurring royalty revenue.

Ventured is building a diversified portfolio of enduring brands designed to grow across categories, channels and markets—while keeping manufacturing, inventory and retail operations with best-in-class operating partners.

What matters most to you? Why?
Ownership, legacy and equity. Music taught me that the people who own the IP are the ones who get to build on it for the long run. I’ve spent my career creating things people remember, and I’ve seen how often creators don’t get to own what they help build. I want Ventured to show that you can come from the creative side and build something that lasts.

Just as important is learning to look deeper. This business changed the way I see the world. Now when I travel, I’m people watching in the airport. I’m noticing the shoes people wear, the hats, the jackets and the bags they carry, and the restaurants and shops they walk past. Then I go down the rabbit hole and look it up. Who actually owns that brand? Who makes it? Where is it going? Most people have no idea who owns the brands they buy every day, and a lot of the companies behind them aren’t household names at all.

That habit has become a bit of a superpower for me. I don’t take things at face value anymore. I pay attention to the small, everyday things most people walk right past, and I keep asking why they work the way they do. IP and brands have taught me how the world really works and how it operates every single day.

Representation matters to me too. As a Black founder, I want to peel back those layers for young people who look like me and show them the inner workings most people never see. The business side, with the rights, the brands and the licensing, is a whole world they should know about, and it’s a place for them, not just the stage.

And respect for the work. Every brand meant something to somebody, and treating that with care is the whole job.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://venturedbrands.com
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• Youtube: https://youtube.com/venturedhq