Alt Goes Mainstream
Michael Sidgmore
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Sep 19, 2023
🎙How "tech's most unlikely venture capitalist," Pear VC's Pejman Nozad, has built a seed investing powerhouse
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Startup stories are often stuff of dreams — and today’s podcast is a story about one of tech’s most unlikely venture capitalists.
Journalist and professional soccer player turned immigrant turned self-proclaimed “best carwasher in San Jose” turned Persian rug salesman turned top Silicon Valley seed investor Pejman Nozad, the Co-Founder & Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC comes on the show to chronicle his journey that has crossed continents to back many of tech’s top companies.
While his story has taken him many places, one thing has stayed constant — his ability to build relationships and connect with people. And that talent has enabled him to succeed in building a top seed fund in Pear with his partner and serial entrepreneur Mar Hershenson, where they have backed the likes of DoorDash, Gusto, Guardant Health, Aurora, and many more.
Pejman shares everything from how to build relationships to how to build a seed fund.
We discussed so many fascinating topics:
* What he looks for in founders.
* Why family is so important.
* How and why building relationships is so critical in early-stage investing.
* How Pear has built out a multitude of products and services for founders across pre-seed and seed.
* How companies can go from zero to product-market fit.
* Why some of the largest institutional LPs are interested in a dedicated pre-seed and seed strategy.
* I also learned that he makes some really good Persian tea, which is apparently even better than Sadaf.
It was a pleasure to have you on the show, Pejman, to share a story for the ages and one that is still being written.
Join over 2,300 thought leaders from top private markets firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Ares, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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Sep 12, 2023
🎙How $9B OCIO Capricorn Investment Group has proven that doing well and doing good don't have to be mutually exclusive: A conversation with Partner Bill Orum
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s episode features a pioneer in the sustainable investing world. Bill Orum, who is a Partner at Capricorn Investment Group, has proven that investors can do well and do good at the same time. Bill and his Partners have led Capricorn, a $9B AUM sustainable investment platform serving families, foundations, and institutional investors for over 20 years as a full service OCIO and investment platform.
Capricorn has been an innovator for a number of years and has evolved into a firm with three distinct but related investment strategies: an OCIO, a GP stakes business that backs asset managers focused on sustainable investing, and the Technology Impact Fund, a VC fund that manages both Capricorn capital and outside capital and is focused on backing companies providing climate solutions.
Capricorn has managed to navigate a complex investing strategy — impact or sustainable investing — and the many geopolitical and governmental challenges associated with climate focused investing in order to generate impressive investment results.
Bill and I had a fascinating conversation. We discussed:
* The evolution of impacting investing.
* How and why generating impact and strong financial returns aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
* How to find and seed managers.
* Why it’s so important to allocate capital to solving the climate challenge.
* How they’ve helped normalize sustainable investing.
Thanks Bill for coming on the show to share your wisdom and knowledge and for being a pioneer in the sustainable investing space, something so important for the future of our planet.
Join over 2,200 thought leaders from top private markets firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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Sep 1, 2023
🎙Wealth management industry titan Haig Ariyan of Arax Investment Partners on the private equity opportunity in wealth management and the intersection of wealth and alts
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
On today’s show, we dive into the world of wealth management with one of the industry’s leaders, Haig Ariyan, the CEO of Arax Investment Partners.
Haig has seen it all. He went from someone who grew up in the advisory world as a wealth manager at Dean Witter Reynolds to ultimately becoming President and CEO of Alex Brown, America’s first investment banking firm. At Alex Brown, he oversaw 220 financial advisors and $70 billion in client assets. When Alex Brown sold to Raymond James Financial, Haig became the Head of Global Wealth Solutions. Prior to Alex Brown, Haig was Head of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management in the Americas.
Haig is taking his expertise to build Arax Investment Partners. Together with RedBird Capital, an $8.6 billion private equity firm focused on financial services and sports and media, Arax is partnering with wealth and asset management firms and teams to build a differentiated platform that takes lessons learned and deep experience from running wealth management businesses.
Haig and Arax are well-capitalized and off to a flying start. They’ve already acquired their first few wealth businesses as well as a $1 billion AUM broker-dealer that will give them the foundation to build on as a hybrid platform.
Haig and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of wealth management and how alts are playing a big role in shaping the future of wealth.
We discussed:
* What it means to be an advisor.
* Why Modern Portfolio Theory was such an important innovation for the industry.
* Why the hybrid brokerage and advisory model makes sense.
* How the wealth management space will continue to evolve.
* How alts can be a differentiator for advisor practices.
* How to build a platform that incentivizes advisor teams.
Thanks Haig for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wealth of wisdom.
Join over 2,200 thought leaders from top private markets firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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Aug 10, 2023
🎙A masterclass in investing and VC: Investing legends John Burbank and Ken Wallace of Nimble Partners on why the winners will win big and how to find them
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
On today’s show, we have a fascinating episode that combines the macro and the micro.
Nimble Partners Founder John Burbank and Partner Ken Wallace come on the show to share their unique perspectives and discuss both the nuances and intricacies of investing in private markets and early-stage venture.
Nimble Partners is a technology investment platform that invests into early-stage fund managers through their manager selection program and as well as direct and co-investments into breakout performers from their fund manager relationships.
John and Ken have had illustrious careers in both public markets and private markets, investing in many of the biggest technology trends and many top early-stage managers over the past 15 years.
John was a top macro investor from founding Passport Capital in 2000, where he was amongst the best hedge fund managers of his time. He’s been investing into early-stage fund managers for the past decade. As a long-time macro investor, he has consistently focused on sectors and investments where technology can be disruptive and accelerate change. He’s also an investor in the Golden State Warriors, the championship winning NBA team.
Ken joined John to build Nimble after a stellar career at Industry Ventures, backing a number of emerging managers, most notably Chris Sacca’s first-time Lowercase Capital fund, which at over 200x+ returns, was amongst the best performing venture funds in history. At Industry Ventures, he specialized in hybrid fund of funds strategy, originating, valuing, and managing primary fund commitments, early secondary LP investments, and direct co-investments.
We had a fascinating conversation that spanned a number of topics:
* Why this is not the end of venture capital — and why the winners are still to going to win and win big.
* How global macro impacts venture capital.
* The framework that John and Ken use to evaluate technology trends and emerging managers.
* How the “portfolio manager” model can be applied to venture capital.
* How information is a huge edge.
* Why duration is the most important thing an investor can have.
Thanks John and Ken for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom.
Join over 2,000 thought leaders from top private markets firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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Aug 2, 2023
🎙Live from Allocate's Beyond Summit: $40B AUM Cresset's Avy Stein and Jordan Stein on how private markets are changing wealth management
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting a live podcast at the Allocate Beyond Summit, where I interviewed Avy Stein and Jordan Stein from Cresset.
Allocate’s founders Samir Kaji and Hana Yang brought together a fascinating and thoughtful group of allocators, family offices, and VCs for an engaging two days of discussion about private markets.
At the event, I interviewed father and son duo from Cresset. Avy Stein, the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Cresset, and Jordan Stein, Director of Private Capital at Cresset Partners, joined me on stage to discuss how their firm has achieved astronomical growth over the past few years, largely due to their business building acumen and in part powered by their focus on private markets.
Cresset is a client and family-owned award-winning multi-family office with over $40 billion in AUM that was built by founders and private equity professionals.
We had a fascinating discussion that covered everything from how and why Avy and Jordan built Cresset to the evolution of the wealth management space and how private markets is playing a large role in that.
Thanks Avy and Jordan for sharing your wisdom and thanks Samir and Hana for hosting such a fantastic event.
Join thought leaders from top private markets firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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Jul 18, 2023
🎙Enabling everyone to invest into alternatives with IRAs featuring Alto CEO Eric Satz
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s episode dives into an important and growing part of the alts ecosystem: how investors can access and invest into alternatives through their retirement funds.
We have Eric Satz, the CEO of Alto, a self-directed IRA custodian, with us today to discuss how he’s on a mission to provide everyday Americans with the same investment opportunity long favored by institutional investors.
Alto provides custody for a wide array of alternative assets, including private companies, real estate, crypto, loans, and securitized collectibles. Alto has streamlined the process for companies, funds, and SEC registered investment platforms to include IRA investors in their offerings. They’ve partnered with firms across the alts space, including AngelList, Coinbase, EquityZen, Republic, Masterworks, and others, to enable investors to invest into private markets with their IRA.
Eric is a serial entrepreneur and former investment banker. He worked at DLJ / Credit Suisse First Boston before co-founding Currenex (acquired by State Street for $564M), Plumgood Food, and Tennessee Community Ventures. His passion for entrepreneurship led him to serve on the Board of the Tennessee Valley Authority from 2015 to 2018 and he teaches an entrepreneurship class to high school students.
On today’s podcast, Eric teaches us all about the merits of a self-directed IRA. He shares why and how it makes sense to use an IRA to invest into private markets investments and how he’s taking lessons learned from prior IRA businesses to build Alto.
Thanks Eric for coming on the show to share your knowledge and passion for alternatives.
Join thought leaders from top private markets firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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Jun 30, 2023
🎙How Phil Huber, the award-winning CIO of $18B AUM Savant Wealth, approaches investing in private markets
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Wealth managers are increasingly participating in private markets, and for good reason. Today’s podcast is with an expert allocator in the alts space, Phil Huber, who has not only been actively investing in private markets as the CIO of $18B Savant Wealth, but has also authored a book about how advisors can approach private markets.
This podcast is a must-listen for any allocator, particularly in the wealth management space, as Phil shares actionable insights for how LPs can go about building a strategy for investing in private markets and how GPs and alternative asset managers can work with the private wealth space.
Phil is the CIO of $18B Savant Wealth. He comes onto the show to discuss how he approaches allocating to alts on behalf of their clients. Phil has spent much of the past 15 years thinking deeply about alts. The has culminated in him authoring a book, The Allocator’s Edge, A Modern Guide to Alternative Investments and the Future of Diversification.
Phil is a Certified Financial Planner professional, has attained his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation, and is a member of the CFA Society of Chicago. Phil has been featured in a number of notable media outlets, including the WSJ, New York Times, and Bloomberg TV, and Phil recently won RIA Intel’s CIO of the Year award.
He produces his own investing blog, bps and pieces, in addition to authoring his book.
Thanks Phil for coming on the show to share your wisdom.
Join thought leaders from top private markets firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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Jun 8, 2023
🎙AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli on building the company of companies that is powering private markets
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today we peer into one of the most fascinating companies in private markets, AngelList, and talk with AngelList’s CEO Avlok Kohli.
AngelList is building the operating system for modern startups and tech innovation, and as such, they see themselves as building a company of companies. AngelList has had almost 19,000 startups raise capital from syndicates and funds on their platform, they support over $15B in assets, and 40% of all US unicorns have had a GP invest in them through AngelList.
To date, AngelList's GP business has largely been known for its marketplace and fund admin product. That changes this week when they begin to release a series of software products available to any venture firm, even if they don't run a fund on AngelList, which automates and adds intelligence to the most onerous and ambiguous parts of running a fund. It all starts with the most comprehensive and tailored banking product, built specifically for venture funds.
Avlok has an impressive background as a tech founder and operator and gives us an insight into how AngelList is building their business.
Avlok is the CEO at AngelList and the Founder and CEO of LegalReach. He is also the former Founder and CEO at Fairy. He created Fastbite, a food delivery service, which was acquired by Square a few months after launch and was integrated into Square’s delivery product as Fastbite by Caviar.
Avlok and I had a fascinating discussion about how AngelList’s product driven culture has enabled them to evolve with customer needs and build all sorts of products and services for GPs, startups, and LPs. We discuss:
* What makes AngelList a n-of-1 company.
* How his experience at Square has informed his company building strategy at AngelList.
* How AngelList's data can track relative health of companies and what will make a “sustainable unicorn.”
* Why it’s almost impossible to compare them to a single traditional financial services company given the breadth and depth of their product offerings.
Thanks Avlok for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom and experiences and for all the work you're doing to power private markets.
Join thought leaders from top private markets firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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May 31, 2023
🎙Revolutionary changes in private markets with John Avery of fintech giant FIS
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today we talk with John Avery, an executive who is leading the charge for private markets, Web3, and tokenization at one of the largest publicly traded financial services companies, FIS.
FIS is one of the world’s leading financial services companies. Over 95% of the world’s banks work with FIS. Their asset management technology processes $40 trillion on an annual basis. And their products and services reach 20,000 clients globally. In the alts space, they work with the majority of the world’s largest private equity funds and alternative asset managers.
FIS has a focused initiative on Web3 and digital assets. John is responsible for that initiative. John’s background spans both technology, where he was a developer in the 1990s, and financial markets, where he built capital markets software that was acquired by SunGard, which was acquired by FIS.
John believes in the infrastructure promise of blockchain technology and how it can create efficiencies in private markets, so we had a fascinating conversation as we delved into how digital assets can transform private markets and how a set of evolutionary changes might deliver transformation on a revolutionary scale.
Thanks John for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom and experiences.
Join thought leaders from private market firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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May 19, 2023
🎙Dealing with the realities of today's venture market: A conversation with top allocator StepStone's Seyonne Kang
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
On today’s episode, we talk with Seyonne Kang, a Partner at StepStone, which acquired her former firm, Greenspring Associates. StepStone is a global private markets firm that provides customized investment and advisory solutions to some of the world’s most sophisticated investors.
StepStone has a total capital responsibility of $602B of assets and has $134B of assets under management across the spectrum of private markets investments, giving them incredible purview into the current private markets landscape.
At StepStone, Seyonne is a member of the private equity team, where she focuses on venture capital fund and growth equity investments.
Prior to StepStone, Seyonne was a Partner at Greenspring Associates, a venture capital and growth equity firm that merged with StepStone in 2021. She spent the 7 years prior in investment management, with a focus on private capital, working at Jasper Ridge Partners and Commonfund. She also spent a decade on Wall Street in institutional equities.
Seyonne and I had a fascinating conversation about the current state of venture capital and what it means for LPs and GPs. We discussed:
* How GPs can weather the storm.
* How LPs can navigate the current venture environment.
* Advice for emerging managers.
* Why secondaries might be an interesting investment opportunity right now.
* How newer allocators to private markets can approach investing into venture and growth.
* Why subject matter expertise matters for fund managers.
* Why Seyonne is excited about innovation and venture in the US in the current market.
Thanks Seyonne for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom and experiences.
Join thought leaders from private market firms like Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, and more.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com
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May 10, 2023
🎙Sheel Mohnot of Better Tomorrow Ventures on the challenges and highlights of building a first-time fund into a first call FinTech VC
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
On today’s episode, we have Sheel Mohnot, the co-founder and Partner of FinTech VC fund Better Tomorrow Ventures.
Sheel is a career fintech investor and operator. He has built Better Tomorrow Ventures into an active pre-seed and seed stage fintech VC that has grown to over $225M AUM. Prior to founding BTV, he was the GP at 500 FinTech, where he was the first institutional investor in Albert, Kin, Indio, Chipper Cash, Ethic, and others. He was also an early investor in Stripe and Flexport. He also co-founded two fintech startups – FeeFighters, which was acquired by GroupOn, and Innovative Auctions.
Sheel and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of FinTech, how to build and scale an emerging manager, the challenges of raising a first time fund, and why smaller funds can outperform.
We didn’t have a chance to discuss the experience of his Taco Bell wedding in the metaverse, but congrats Sheel and Amruta on your mar…
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May 6, 2023
🎙LACERA's Daniel Joye on investing in infrastructure that builds cities and nations
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s show was recorded live from AltsLA 2023 in partnership with CAIA. CAIA is the leading global professional body dedicated to alternative investment credential programs.
On this episode, we speak with Daniel Joye, where he oversees Infrastructure investing at LACERA, the $58 billion AUM Los County Employees Retirement Association.
Daniel and I had a fascinating conversation about how an institutional investor like LACERA approaches investing in infrastructure, the benefits of infrastructure investing, particularly in the current market environment, how to think about risk / return of infrastructure assets in a portfolio, and why investing in infrastructure is so critical to the development of cities and nations.
Prior to moving back to Los Angeles and joining LACERA (he is an LA native), Daniel worked in London for Morgan Stanley, Vitol and BP with a focus on energy trading and investing.
He started his career in the French…
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May 4, 2023
🎙Commonfund CIO & CEO Mark Anson on finding alpha in a more crowded private market
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s show was recorded live from AltsLA 2023 in partnership with CAIA. CAIA is the leading global professional body dedicated to alternative investment credential programs.
On this episode, we speak with Mark Anson, the CEO and CIO of Commonfund ($28B AUM).
Mark and I had a fascinating discussion on private markets. We discussed:
* Why size discipline and sector focus defeat the explosion of capital in private markets.
* Why multi-manager strategies or commingled vehicles make sense for wealth managers (particularly in VC).
* How allocators can invest in the next Sequoia.
* Why the concept of lagged beta matters for allocators.
* How ESG and impact investing can be integrated into an investor’s portfolio.
Mark Anson is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of the Commonfund and Chairman of the Board of Commonfund Capital Inc. and Commonfund Asset Management Company.
Previously, he was the President and…
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May 3, 2023
🎙A conversation with $300B CalSTRS CIO Christopher Ailman, one of the world's largest institutional investors
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s show was recorded live from AltsLA 2023 in partnership with CAIA. CAIA is the leading global professional body dedicated to alternative investment credential programs.
On this episode, we speak with Christopher Ailman, the Chief Investment Officer of one of the world’s largest institutional investors, CalSTRS.
Chris and I had a fascinating conversation about all things private markets. We discussed:
* How one of the world’s largest institutional investors manages a portfolio with 40% exposure to private markets.
* How many institutional investors are really managing an 80/20 portfolio (80% equity / equity-like, 20% fixed income / fixed income-like), not a 60/40 portfolio.
* The current state of private markets.
* Why alternative investments make sense in an investors’ portfolio.
* The importance of “catching the wave” and investing in megatrends, like decarbonization.
* How the retailization of alts impacts i…
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May 2, 2023
🎙Insights on investing and geopolitics from the 44th Vice President of the United States and Chairman of Cerberus Global Investments Dan Quayle
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast and hello from AltsLA.
Today’s show was recorded live from AltsLA 2023 in partnership with CAIA. CAIA is the leading global professional body dedicated to alternative investment credential programs.
On this episode, we speak with the 44th Vice President of the United States Dan Quayle, the Chairman of Cerberus Global Investments.
We discussed the intersection of politics, private equity, people, and patience:
* The current state of private markets.
* How geopolitics plays an important role in investing.
* The impact of social media on financial markets.
* How Cerberus grew into the firm it is today.
* The power of patience in investing.
Vice President Quayle is Chairman of Cerberus Global Investments and a member of the Firm’s senior leadership team, joining when the firm was $14B in AUM and playing a role in overseeing its growth to over $60B AUM.
Prior to joining Cerberus in 1999, he served as the 44th Vice President of th…
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Apr 20, 2023
🎙Lessons from Filip Dames, Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures, on building one of Europe's top seed VC funds, entrepreneurship, and life
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
On today’s episode, we go to Europe, and specifically Berlin, a region where some of the most exciting activity in the VC world is occurring.
We have Filip Dames, a Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures, a top pan-European early-stage VC fund that has around $700M AUM, lead us in a discussion about why Europe is such a compelling place to invest and why it’s on the precipice of an incredible decade in tech.
Filip has the founder DNA. Prior to Cherry, he started his first company in 2008, which was a digital marketplace for art and collectibles long before NFTs existed. He then joined Zalando as a member of the founding team, where he led business development and international expansion efforts. He founded and was the CEO of the group’s shopping club, Zalando Lounge, and left Zalando after a successful IPO in 2014 to fully focus on Cherry.
In Cherry, Filip has strived to build the firm that he would have wanted as a founder. They…
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Apr 5, 2023
🎙 How private equity can weather the storm with industry expert Graham Elton, Partner & Chairman of EMEA Private Equity at Bain & Company
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
On today’s show, we have a private equity expert who is as thoughtful and sharp as they come.
Graham Elton is the Chairman of Bain & Company’s EMEA Private Equity practice, where he’s helped many of the largest PE and alts firms navigate a growing market and build successful businesses.
Graham has also spearheaded the industry standard in reports — the Bain PE Practice Report — which is read by many across the industry.
Many of the world’s largest GPs often turn to Graham for advice on their business due to his background as an operator, investor, and strategic consultant. He previously ran multiple media businesses — he was the CEO at Miller Freeman UK, was a MD at The Financial Times Business, a strategy director at Pearson, and a Partner at Evolution Global Partners.
He serves on a number of boards, including Lane Clark & Peacock, Pageant Media, Capital Economics, SLR Consulting, and Now Teach and National Youth Cen…
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Mar 23, 2023
🎙 Special Episode: Alt Goes Mainstream x Venture Unlocked - The future of venture capital and private markets with Allocate Co-Founder & CEO Samir Kaji
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
We have a special episode today – it’s a collaboration between Alt Goes Mainstream and Venture Unlocked: Samir Kaji, the Co-Founder & CEO of Allocate and the Venture Unlocked Podcast, and I have a back and forth discussion about the future of private markets and venture.
If you are an allocator to private markets or a VC fund manager, you won’t want to miss this.
Samir co-founded Allocate to enable the wealth management community to be able to access high quality venture funds in the same way institutions have for years.
He draws upon a background of 22 years in venture banking at First Republic and SVB, where he worked closely with and advised over 700 venture capital and private equity firms. He completed over $12B in structured debt transactions and has invested in a number of funds and companies.
Samir completed the Kauffman Fellows venture program and is an active writer and podcaster with Venture Unlocked.
We cover:
*…
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Mar 15, 2023
🎙 How the digitization of fund accounting will take alts into the mainstream with LemonEdge CEO & Co-Founder Gareth Hewitt
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
On today’s podcast, we have an expert in alternative assets and fund accounting. We welcome Gareth Hewitt, a fund accounting veteran and co-founder of LemonEdge, to the show.
Gareth is the CEO and Co-Founder of LemonEdge, where they are building a better, more efficient fund accounting software platform.
With backing from Blackstone, Lauren Iaslovits, the founder of pioneering fund accounting software Investran (acq by SunGard), Sidekick Partners, and others deep in the PE and alts world, Gareth has been building a next generation fund accounting solution for GPs, fund admins, and investment platforms.
LemonEdge’s solution has a modern core infrastructure, full multi-currency partnership accounting, system-aware fund structures and integrated waterfall technology. They've built a platform that is used by a number of the industry's largest GPs and asset managers.
Gareth is an expert in alternative assets — he was Head of UK Pro…
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Mar 1, 2023
🎙Betterfront Co-Founder & CEO Michel Geolier on how data and software can drive better investment decisions and fundraising success
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s episode of Alt Goes Mainstream features someone who is building a vertical SaaS solution for fund managers and LPs.
Today’s guest is Michel Geolier, the Co-Founder and CEO of Betterfront, a b2b company dedicated to private markets. He’s building a comprehensive solution to enable fund managers to more efficiently and effectively fundraise and trade secondary market fund interests.
You can listen to this episode of Alt Goes Mainstream on Apple Podcasts here, on Spotify here, and on Transistor here.
Betterfront’s mission is to transform the way alternative fund managers engage, win, and retain investors by using technology, data, and analytics. Betterfront is already trusted by a number of top European VCs, including Cherry Ventures, Partech, Episode 1, and more.
Michel comes at the problem of fundraising with a very unique perspective. He was previously on the LP side, where he led due diligence and fund manager selec…
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Feb 14, 2023
🎙Wrexham AFC & English Football Executive Shaun Harvey on how a dash of Hollywood has spurred success on and off the pitch to create the "Wrexham Effect"
Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast and Welcome to Wrexham.
On today’s show, we go to Wrexham, the town in North Wales that has become a football (soccer) mecca due to a blend of its rich history as home to the 3rd oldest club in the world and a recent injection of Hollywood with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buying the club.
We talk with Shaun Harvey, the Advisor to the Board at Wrexham AFC, and a highly experienced football club and league CEO to discuss how teams can have success on and off the pitch.
Shaun is the CEO of Wantaway Limited, where he advises football clubs, organizing bodies, and companies on all things related to the business of football. His current clients include Wrexham AFC, FIFA, Inner Circle Sports, and Macron.
He’s taken his experiences as the MD at Bradford City FC, which he led to Premier League promotion, the CEO at Leeds United, and the CEO of the English Football League to Wrexham AFC, where he and the team are working to secure prom…
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Feb 9, 2023
🎙Fundrise Co-Founder & CEO and online investment pioneer Ben Miller on using data to transform alternative investing for everyone
On the latest episode of Alt Goes Mainstream, we talk with one of the pioneers of the online investment space.
Today’s guest is Ben Miller, the Co-Founder and CEO of Fundrise, one of America’s largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment managers.
Ben has tremendous experience and expertise in both the real estate space and in building innovative alternative investment technology solutions. Prior to founding Fundrise, Ben was a Managing Partner of WestMill Capital Partners and President of Western Development Corporation, where he was responsible for acquiring, developing, and financing more than $500M worth of property.
In Fundrise, Ben has built a company whose aim is to use technology to build a better financial system for the individual investor, which is simpler, lower cost, more reliable, and transparent. They build software that enables the company to develop and manage investments uniquely well-positioned to grow and preserve their clients’ capital in any economi…
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Jan 19, 2023
🎙Semper Co-Founder Mathias Pastor on standardizing private markets and creating liquidity mechanisms for private companies and employees
We have an exciting episode today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
We are joined by Mathias Pastor, the Co-Founder of Semper, a London and Paris based company that uses liquidity to align the interests of private companies, employees and investors.
Mathias and his co-founder Balthazar de Lavergne created Semper after observing that private companies are staying private longer and employees and founders need ways to unlock liquidity in a systematic, recurring way. Working at The Family, a European VC fund, Mathias saw that employees at some of their largest and fastest growing companies were paper-rich, but didn’t have the liquidity that reflected the value of their shares.
Mathias and Balthazar have created a liquidity financing platform to help fast-growing private companies run recurring, end-to-end secondary transactions. They believe this can enable teams to retain talent while enabling investors to access high-quality private companies.
Mathias and I had a fascinating con…
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Dec 20, 2022
🎙Carta CEO Henry Ward on the Ownership Era and what it means for the future of private markets
We have a special episode today on Alt Goes Mainstream.
Our guest today is Henry Ward, the CEO and co-founder of Carta, one of the most innovative and exciting companies in private markets.
Henry founded Carta from the kernel of an idea and they are now trusted by over 30,000 companies, 5,000 investment funds and 2.1 million employees for cap table management, compensation management, liquidity venture capital solutions and more. They’ve raised over $1B from the likes of Silver Lake, Union Square Ventures, a16z, Tribe Capital, Meritech, and many others.
Carta has been included on the Forbes World’s Best Cloud Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative list, and Inc’s Fastest Growing Private Companies.
Henry is a serial entrepreneur who was previously the founder and CEO of Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. He built Carta with a deep sense of passion for helping people to become investors in private markets and equity owners.
Henry and I ha…
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Dec 12, 2022
Levent Altunel & Enrico Ohnemuller, Co-Founders of Bunch, on creating the operating system for private market investors
We believe that good things come in bunches. On the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we’ve covered a number of innovative ways in which more investors are now able to access alternative investments thanks to innovation in infrastructure that pools investors together.
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we are lucky enough to peer into a market that’s creating a bunch of excitement: the early stage venture market in Europe.
Levent Altunel and Enrico Ohnemuller are a big part of making alts go mainstream in Europe with their company, Bunch.
In Bunch, Levent and Enrico are building the operating system for private markets investing. They’ve brought their fantastic and relevant backgrounds to bear – Levent as a Citi alum and VC investor at Paua Ventures and Enrico as a Goldman alum and a builder at FinLeap, building critical core banking and payments infrastructure – that will enable them to unlock the private markets for more investors and make these markets more efficient.…
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Nov 16, 2022
Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton, on how to build and maintain a $1.5T global investment firm across multiple decades
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we have the third podcast in a special three part series with some of the titans in the alts world.
We are partnering with CAIA, the leading global professional body in alternative investment credentialing programs, for a very special episode that dovetails with the release of their latest report on Renewed Professionalism and creating client centered outcomes for the Portfolio of the Future.
We are lucky enough to have Jenny Johnson, the CEO of Franklin Templeton, one of the world’s largest asset managers with over $1.5T AUM spread across a number of specialist managers.
Jenny and I had a fascinating conversation:
* About the evolution of the asset management industry.
* How companies can be considered nation-states.
* How to distribute alternatives to all investors in a responsible way, which is a particularly interesting perspective given that Franklin Templeton has over 25% of its $1.5T AUM in alternative assets.
* Why net of fees…
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Nov 4, 2022
Michelle Seitz, former CEO of $1.2T AUA Russell Investments and Founder & CEO of MeydenVest Partners, on the continuing evolution of the asset management industry: A special podcast series with CAIA
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we have the second podcast in a special three part series with some of the titans in the alts world.
We are partnering with CAIA, the leading global professional body in alternative investment credentialing programs, for a very special episode that dovetails with the release of their latest report on Renewed Professionalism and creating client centered outcomes for the Portfolio of the Future.
We are lucky enough to have Michelle Seitz, a stalwart and veteran of the asset management industry who is the Founder and CEO of MeydenVest Partners, LLC, a private investment firm, and was most recently the CEO of Russell Investments, one of the largest investment firms in the world with $300B in AUM and $1.2T in assets under advisement.
During Michelle’s five year tenure as Chair and CEO, she helped to modernize client offerings by adding leading edge capabilities around private markets and ESG investing and elevated diversity and inclusion progra…
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Oct 6, 2022
Luke Ellis, CEO of Man Group, on how a $142B investment manager creates client-centered outcomes: A special podcast series with CAIA
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we have the first podcast in a three part series with titans in the alts world on how they’ve built and run some of the world’s largest investment managers.
We have partnered with CAIA, the leading global professional body in alternative investment credentialing programs, for a very special episode that dovetails with the release of their latest report on Renewed Professionalism and creating client-centered outcomes for the Portfolio of the Future.
We are lucky enough to have Luke Ellis, the CEO of Man Group, one of the largest active investment firms in the world. Man Group manages $142B (as of June 30, 2022) across a range of liquid and private markets strategies and has the central objective to deliver alpha for clients.
Speaking of alpha, Luke and I had a fascinating discussion about what it means to create alpha. Luke believes that alts are all about the return the client gets and he and Man are focused on doing important work to en…
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Sep 2, 2022
Hightower's Robert Picard on how a $117B wealth management platform approaches alternative investments
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who has rich experience in the alts space.
Robert Picard, who was recently tapped to become the Head of Alternatives at Hightower, a $117B AUM wealth management platform, has over 32 years of experience on the buy and sell side in alts.
Robert came onto the podcast to discuss how he’s witnessed alts evolve over the past 30 years. He’s worked with top-tier asset managers, built private wealth units for banks, and is now building out Hightower’s expansive alts capabilities in-house to provide bespoke sophisticated solutions for some of the industry’s best wealth managers.
Robert was recently First Republic’s MD and Head of Alternative Investments. At First Republic Private Wealth Management, he consolidated two alternative investment businesses into a single platform and generated meaningful growth in wealth management team participation in alts and fund offerings across all asset classes.
Prior to First Republic, he…
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Aug 9, 2022
Manhattan West's CEO and Founding Principal Lorenzo Esparza on how alternative investing can transform wealth management
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a fascinating episode with a wealth management veteran who has transformed his firm into a full fledged asset manager with significant private markets capabilities.
Lorenzo Esparza is the CEO and Founding Principal at Manhattan West where he leveraged his legal, corporate, and financial experience to form the modern version of an investment firm.
Lorenzo and I had a fascinating conversation that spanned the evolution of wealth management, how advisors are approaching the alts space, how platforms and tech are democratizing access to alts, and Manhattan West’s unique model.
Lorenzo manages Manhattan West’s strategic direction while overseeing day to day operations. He is focused on building the firm using a top-down approach to working with clients across a broad suite of services and investment categories.
Lorenzo is looking to position the firm as a leader in the investment industry serving ultra-high net worth clients, family o…
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Jul 21, 2022
CoinList Co-Founder and CEO Graham Jenkin on why decentralized software is going to eat software
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who has seen virtually every evolution of the internet and financial services since the 1990s.
Graham Jenkin is the Co-Founder and CEO of CoinList, the leading token issuance platform in the crypto space that has helped a large number of the top crypto projects by market cap get their earliest funding and customers with an initial token sale on CoinList.
CoinList has played a critical role in the crypto ecosystem for early-stage token projects from doing token issuances for Flow to Solana to Mina and more.
Given the quality of projects that they work with from the earliest of days, it's no surprise that they have attracted millions of users to CoinList. They have over 5M users on the platform.
Graham's background and blend of consumer, engineering, design, and finance lends itself incredibly well to building CoinList.
Prior to helping spin out CoinList from AngelList and co-founding the business, Graham was the COO and UX en…
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Jul 6, 2022
Global Founders Capital Partner Don Stalter on the evolution of technology innovation, venture capital, and crypto
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who has seen the alts and crypto worlds from multiple angles.
Don Stalter is a Partner at Global Founders Capital (GFC) where he focuses primarily on the US early stage venture market. He has a deep operating background as a founder and operator at some of tech’s leading marketplaces.
He co-founded CityDeal, which was acquired by Groupon. He then built Groupon’s international offices in Europe and Asia.
He subsequently led BD at Airbnb globally and launched multiple offices organically and through M&A.
At GFC, he’s been an early investor in fintech titans Brex, Checkr, Deel, Slope, and many more. He’s also invested in a number of crypto funds.
We had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of technology and venture capital. We also discuss how companies can think about integrating crypto – namely the likes of Airbnb and Brex – into their payments flow and how VC funds can approach investing into crypto fun…
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Jun 14, 2022
Latitud Co-Founder Brian Requarth on building world-class tech companies in Latin America
Hi from Mexico City. Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast we travel to one of the most exciting regions in the startup world – Latin America, which has seen venture backed funding dollars of $14.8B flowing into the region in 2021 come in higher than the prior 6 years combined.
Brian Requarth comes onto the podcast to talk about building the company that he wish he had when he was an entrepreneur in Latin America.
He’s the co-founder of Latitud, the a16z and NFX backed infrastructure and accelerator for startups. With Latitud, he’s building the operating system for venture backed companies in the region.
We had a fascinating conversation about why founders and investors should be #LongLatAm. We discuss:
* Why LatAm is such an exciting region to invest into right now.
* How community is the new lean startup and the equivalent of Stanford of the internet.
* How the confluence of talent, capital, size of the market, and opportunity make LatAm a region of focus for VCs.
* W…
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Jun 5, 2022
Passthrough Co-Founder Tim Flannery on how automating fund closing changes the alts space
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who is making alts go mainstream by streamlining the process of investing into funds.
Carta and fund manager veteran Tim Flannery is the Co-Founder of Passthrough, a fund workflow automation tool that digitizes and automates the fund subscription process.
We had a fascinating discussion about how Passthrough is providing critical market infrastructure to the alts space and what the future of investing into funds looks like with Passthrough.
We discuss:
* Why there needs to be innovation around fund closings.
* How data matters in the fund closing process.
* How creating an investor passport can lead to efficiencies across the alts space.
* How Passthrough is the “narrow waist” of the alts space — building the connective tissue for funds and LPs to complete closings and then use that data in all sorts of places and sit on top of platforms like iCapital, CartaX, AngelList, Republic, and others. In a sense, Passthrough…
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May 2, 2022
[AGM Podcast] Finimize's community builder extraordinaire Max Rothery on how community influences capital
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a special guest on an important topic that is core to why alts are going mainstream – community.
We have community builder extraordinaire Max Rothery, the VP Community at Finimize. Max is responsible for engaging and serving Finimize’s 1 million global audience. Finimize is building the world’s largest finance community of investors globally – and building community are they doing.
In 4 years, they reached over 1 million subscribers, 60 thousand per year attend member organized events, and Finimize was recently acquired by 197 year old Abrdn plc, formerly Standard Life Aberdeen, a FTSE 100 investment firm with over 464B GBP AUM that’s the UK’s largest active asset manager.
Max brings a wealth of experience in community building and digital transformation to the table as he builds community. He previously led innovation and digital transformation for Societe Generale’s private bank. He also brings a unique perspective fro…
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Apr 10, 2022
[AGM Podcast] Bessemer Venture Partners' Ethan Kurzweil on bridging Web2 and Web3: A conversation on private markets, crypto, & the BessemerDAO
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who helps us bridge the gap between the past, the present, and the future.
Ethan Kurzweil, a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, who is leading BVP’s crypto efforts and the BessemerDAO, comes onto the show to help us make sense of the evolution from the Web2 to Web2.5 to Web3 world.
Ethan and I had a fascinating discussion. We talked about:
* The evolution of venture capital and private markets.
* Bessemer’s thesis on Web3.
* Why Bessemer decided to start a DAO and how they are innovating on portfolio services by building out a community.
* How Web3 gives people the primitives to fulfill on the premise of decentralization and ownership.
Bessemer is a storied venture fund that got its start back in 1975 after spinning out of Bessemer Trust. Fast forward to today, they are one of the best technology investors on the planet investing into industry defining companies like Shopify, Twilio, PagerDuty, DocuSign, LinkedIn, T…
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Mar 27, 2022
[AGM Podcast] Why United Soccer League COO & Chief Real Estate Officer Justin Papadakis believes that soccer is the next great alternative investment
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a fascinating conversation about how soccer is a compelling alternative investment.
We talk with Justin Papadakis, the COO & Chief Real Estate Officer of the United Soccer League. The USL is the largest and one of the fastest growing professional soccer organizations in the United States.
Justin and I had a fascinating conversation about how sports and investing are emerging in large part because of the collision of culture and finance.
We discussed:
* How soccer is such an underrated investment opportunity.
* How the USL has seen a rise in team valuations from the hundreds of thousands to some teams valued in the $60-70M range — with a big opportunity to increase revenues through various revenue streams that include media, player transfers, sports betting, stadium related revenue, real estate related revenue.
* How the intersection of sports and real estate factors into the investment thesis for sports teams.
* How the transiti…
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Mar 2, 2022
How mission and capital can co-exist as sports is becoming a compelling alternative investment. A conversation with Julie Uhrman on how Angel City FC is changing the game in sports and business
Today, we have a guest on Alt Goes Mainstream who lives at the intersection of culture and finance as sports is increasingly becoming an investable asset class.
Angel City FC Co-Founder & President Julie Uhrman and I had a fascinating conversation about how sports and investing are merging together – and how that’s informed how she’s building Angel City FC.
Julie and team have been innovative in the way that they’ve engaged fans, players, and investors. We discuss:
* How ACFC has used entertainment to have an impact.
* How athletes are building their own platforms on and off the field - and what that means for player, fans, and teams.
* How new types of investors — both professional funds and celebrities — are leveraging their platforms for impact to help sports teams build a differentiated brand and business.
* How ACFC is taking lessons learned from innovations in technology, community-building, and Web3 to engage fans and create new revenues for sports clubs.
* Ho…
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Feb 16, 2022
[AGM Podcast] Building the next entertainment giant with Nicolas Julia, Co-Founder & CEO of Sorare
“Our aim is to create the biggest entertainment brand in the world, starting with sports … we are building a cult brand around NFT collectibles and we are bringing usage value for them in the fantasy game and the physical world.” - Nicolas Julia, Sorare.
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a fascinating discussion about the intersection of culture and finance with Nicolas Julia, the Co-Founder & CEO of Sorare.
Nicolas founded Sorare to build the next entertainment giant. His NFT platform, Sorare, is enabling people to own their game and live at the intersection of work and play – they can play fantasy soccer and trade digital collectibles – and, at times, earn money while doing so.
We covered a number of topics, including:
* The merging of culture and finance.
* How Sorare is building a next generation entertainment brand across multiple sports and geographies.
* How NFTs are integral in on-ramping the next 100M-1B users to crypto.
* What it means for inve…
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Feb 1, 2022
[AGM Podcast] Re-architecting the world of investing with Ian Lee, Co-Founder of Syndicate
“What I’ve come to realize is that investing literally shapes the world that we have. It is effectively at the highest of levels, allocating resources, whether financial or human capital, to things and teams that build the future that we all live in. Investing builds the world.” - Ian Lee, Syndicate.
Today we discuss the topic of a revolutionary new construct – DAOs – and how it can change investing for the better.
Today’s guest is Ian Lee, the Co-Founder of Syndicate.
Ian combines a background in financial services with a prescient view on the future with what he's building at Syndicate.
We discuss:
* How Syndicate is doing to investing what YouTube did to film and media.
* How Web3 enables community ownership where Web2 didn’t and how investing will become more community driven.
* How DAOs are a social financial technology coordinating social and financial capital seamlessly and natively on the internet.
* How DAOs are unlocking participation from all sorts of c…
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Jan 16, 2022
[AGM Podcast] Deconstructing Web3's promise with Web3's Wizard with Words, TCG Partner Jarrod Dicker
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have Web3’s wizard with words. Jarrod Dicker, Partner at TCG, where he focuses on crypto investments that are enabling the consumerization of crypto.
Jarrod is an expert at the intersection of crypto / NFTs and the media world. He was both an entrepreneur and investor in the media world prior to joining TCG.
We had a fascinating discussion about the transition to the Web3 world. We covered:
* Whether or not everyone is now an investor and everything is now investable.
* How social credentialism and the idea of time as an investment is key to Web3.
* We ended the podcast with some of Jarrod’s famed Web2 // Web3 tweets because he truly is a wizard with words and is a translator for the world of Web3.
There are few people in the crypto space whose content I enjoy reading more than Jarrod's. His Tweets and writing (on Mirror.xyz, where he's an investor) are incredibly prescient and speaks to his knowledge of the crypto space.
He joined…
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Dec 17, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Moonfare Founder, CEO Steffen Pauls & Fidelity International Strategic Ventures Managing Partner Alokik Advani on why they believe in the future of retail distribution in alts
Today, we have a unique episode on Alt Goes Mainstream. We have our first episode with a founder and their lead investor from their Series B.
We have the founder of leading alts fund investment platform, Moonfare, and their Series B lead investor, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, on the podcast to talk about why both of them believe in the future of retail distribution in alts and the anatomy of their deal.
Steffen Pauls, the founder of Moonfare, has had an illustrious career in the private equity world. Prior to founding Moonfare in 2016, Steffen was a MD at KKR where he was responsible for the firm’s coverage of the German market. Prior to joining KKR, he was the CEO of firstfive AG. He also served on the Advisory Board of Versatel, Serbia Broadband, and Hertha BSC.
Alokik Advani, who runs Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, is an expert in the financial market structure. He’s been right in the middle of investing in many of the core technology solutions that…
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Dec 10, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Fidelity Digital Assets President Tom Jessop on the power and promise of Web3 and building a crypto business within an $11 trillion AUM financial institution
Today we have a guest who is an expert from both the traditional financial services world and the crypto world, which has equipped him with the ability to bridge the two worlds and build onramps into the crypteconomy.
Tom Jessop, who heads Fidelity Digital Assets, is an expert in market structure, capital markets, and crypto.
There are few who have seen as much as him when it comes to the evolution of market structure.
He’s an OG FinTech investor, investing into FinTech before it even had that moniker.
He has a knack for finding trends before they are big. He did it with FinTech – and more recently he’s been on the forefront of another major trend: crypto.
He’s the President of Fidelity Digital Assets, where he’s responsible for helping one of the world’s largest asset managers build out a full-service enterprise-grade platform for digital assets.
Fidelity has long been a pioneer amongst financial institutions in crypto. They started R&D efforts on crypto in 2014, sta…
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Sep 8, 2021
[AGM Podcast] How Percent Founder and CEO, Nelson Chu, is transforming private debt markets
Today we have a guest who is transforming the private debt markets.
Nelson Chu is the Founder & CEO of Percent (formerly known as Cadence), a leading digital securitization and investment platform for private credit.
Nelson has built a marketplace to revolutionize private credit by leveraging technology and data to enable efficient price discovery and funding for originators so they can lower their cost of capital.
The business has started to take off in the past year, with Percent recently completing their largest securitization ever - $144 million for FAT Brands – and raising a $12.5M Series A led by White Star and B Capital. To date, Percent has issued over $400 million in private credit transactions.
Nelson has the Wall Street background to understand the private credit world and the startup background to understand how to build companies.
Prior to founding Percent, he founded Lumenary, a strategy consulting firm that specialized in helping companies build products and raise…
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Aug 11, 2021
[AGM Podcast] How WAX Founder & CEO Calvin Bradley is "insuring" that alts go mainstream
Today we have a founder who is creating a modern insurance provider for the collectibles industry that was made for collectors, by collectors.
Calvin Bradley is the Founder of WAX, a digital insurance company for collectors to protect the value of their collections by making collecting safer, easier, and more community-oriented.
Calvin and I had a fascinating conversation about how the modern world of collectibles requires a modern, digital insurance solution, how NFTs factors into the world of collectibles, and what the future looks like for WAX.
Insurance is a major challenge in the collectibles space. It is often hard to properly appraise valuable items on a real-time basis as there has yet to be real-time data in many collectibles markets.
WAX is building a modern insurance provider, for collectors, by collectors. Founded by a team that has deep experience owning collectibles, they have created a mobile app to enable users to take pictures of their collectibles and have them pr…
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Jul 30, 2021
[AGM Podcast] How Vinovest Founder & CEO Anthony Zhang is turning a passion for wine into an investable asset class
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who may be young in age, but has already done more and lived through more than many people twice his age.
Anthony Zhang recently turned 26 but has already successfully built and sold two companies, secured funding from Mark Cuban, and received a Thiel Fellowship grant before starting Vinovest, his third company, which is making it easier to access fine wine as an investment product.
He also has an admirable and awe-inspiring personal story, working hard to come back from a devastating accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He was in the middle of running his second company, EnvoyNow, when this accident happened and, despite the tremendous adversity he faced, was able to continue to build the business and achieve a successful sale.
Anthony recently founded Vinovest, a platform that has been described as the Robinhood of wine investing. He’s built an investment platform that is unlocking wine investing to the mas…
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Jul 23, 2021
[AGM Podcast] How crowdfunding OG Slava Rubin is building the on-ramp to alternative investing with Vincent
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have one of the OGs of the crowdfunding space on to talk about how he’s built platforms that have evolved in tandem with the alts ecosystem.
Slava Rubin is the founder of both Indiegogo, one of the first crowdfunding platforms, and Vincent, a platform that is making discovery and alternative investments easier for investors. He is also the founder of humbition, an early-stage investment firm.
We had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of the alts space – from the early days of equity crowdfunding to now wading through all the different options of investment platforms in the alts space today. We talk about:
* The evolution of the alts space.
* The alts portfolio of the future.
* The need for an aggregator – and how once other industries, like travel, had an aggregator, the space took off.
Slava founded Indiegogo in 2006. He grew Indiegogo from an idea to over 500,000 campaigns and more than $1 billion distributed around…
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Jul 16, 2021
[AGM Podcast] How Rally Co-Founders Chris Bruno & Rob Petrozzo have turned culture into an investable asset
Today we have a special episode of Alt Goes Mainstream – the co-founders of Rally on to discuss how people can now invest into defining cultural moments and assets that are aligned with their passions.
Chris Bruno and Rob Petrozzo grew up together - and they have combined their respective talents to form what has become one of the symbols for the financialization of all sorts of assets.
Rally, which started as a platform to enable investors to invest into shares of classic cars that would be unattainable to many investors, has become a multi-asset investment platform that allows individual investors to invest into all sorts of exotic, rare assets at low minimums.
Chris, Rob, and I had a fascinating conversation about how Rally built and evolved their concept from classic cars to all sorts of rare, grail assets. We discuss:
* How they got into collectibles themselves.
* How they’ve waded through complex regulatory structures to figure out how to offer these assets to the masses…
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Jun 27, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Pipe's Chief Business Officer Michal Cieplinski on how they have built a unicorn by unlocking recurring revenue as an asset class
Today, we have an expert in lending and capital markets on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to discuss how his company, Pipe, is building a new asset class.
Michal Cieplinski is the Chief Business Officer for Pipe, a fast growing fintech company.
Pipe has seen a rapid rise over the past year. They are one of the fastest fintech companies to reach a $2 billion valuation – and it’s in large part because investors see the potential to build a platform that unlocks recurring revenue as an investable asset class for the world’s largest institutional investors.
Michal deeply understands the inner workings of credit and lending on both the borrower and lender side from his experiences helping to build Fundbox, LendingClub, and now Pipe.
Pipe was born from the idea that entrepreneurs and companies should be able to grow their businesses on their terms – without taking debt or dilution.
This was a fascinating discussion with someone who has seen the evolution of a number of lending…
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Jun 12, 2021
[AGM Podcast] How Bitso's Co-Founder & CEO Daniel Vogel has built a unicorn by making crypto useful
Today, we have our first LatAm guest on the AGM podcast. And it was a special one.
Bitso, LatAm’s leading crypto exchange, is fresh off of raising a $250M round led by Tiger Global months after raising a $62M round led by QED and Kaszek - and has been minted as one of LatAm’s newest unicorns.
We had Bitso’s co-founder and CEO Daniel Vogel on to talk about what it has been like to build a leading FinTech company in the region and provide access to investments and financial services.
This was such a fun conversation. We could have gone on for hours. Daniel is such a compelling and fascinating storyteller. We discussed a number of things including:
* How Daniel has dedicated his life to unlocking monetary freedom for people through crypto.
* How a talk with his friend, a janitor at his company in Silicon Valley, opened his eyes to the need for real applications of crypto to help people send money cross-border.
* The origins of Bitso and how Bitso was a pioneer of an online bro…
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Jun 1, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Allocate Founder & CEO Samir Kaji on why emerging managers are the future of venture capital
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a domain expert in the world of VC – and someone who has been a visionary when it has come to one of the biggest movements in VC over the past 8 years: emerging managers.
Samir Kaji, the Founder & CEO of Allocate, is a well-respected industry leader in the VC world. He has spent over 20 years partnering with VCs at First Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, where he led the Venture Capital and Private Equity banking efforts. At First Republic, he built out the infrastructure and client base that served the VC and PE community. He’s evaluated over 800 VC fund managers and worked with thousands of LPs at First Republic.
Samir and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of venture capital and what’s to come for the industry. He’s seen a lot in his career in Silicon Valley that has spanned multiple market cycles. He shared his perspective on:
* The challenges that GPs and LPs face during fundraising.
* Why the stru…
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May 23, 2021
[AGM Podcast] FarmTogether CEO Artem Milinchuk on why everyone should invest into farmland
Today we have a guest who is bringing farmland investing to the masses.
After working for one of Canada’s largest pension plans, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and running Operations and as the CFO at a platform for buying and selling produce, Artem Milinchuk founded FarmTogether to bring an asset that has largely been the domain of institutional investors to individuals.
Artem and I had a fascinating conversation. We discussed:
* How farmland deserves a place in all investors’ portfolios – in large part due to its features as a hedge against inflation and a passive income generating investment.
* How to underwrite a farmland asset.
* How he one day envisions the ability to invest into farmland embedded directly into one’s brokerage account.
* He also made a great case for how we can eat our way into supporting farmland investments, like hazelnut farms, which happen to be some of the types of farms that Artem likes to invest into.
FarmTogether is a technology-enabled…
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May 4, 2021
[AGM Podcast] The trailblazing "Queen of British VC," Passion Capital Partner Eileen Burbidge, on startup royalty and venturing into the crowd
Today, we have one of the pioneers of the European tech ecosystem on to discuss how the European early-stage VC landscape has changed since its early days – and how their fund, Passion Capital, has unlocked access to individual investors with an innovative decision for their most recent fundraise.
Eileen Burbidge is a Founding Partner of Passion Capital, one of the UK’s top seed stage VCs.
Eileen and I had a fascinating conversation about all things VC. We discussed:
* How Eileen’s early days in Internet 1.0 working at Sun Microsystems, Apple, Skype (one of the first employees in Europe & Head of Product), and Yahoo! helped shape her views on venture.
* How Passion Capital helped build the fabric of the UK startup ecosystem with White Bear Yard.
* How Passion is opening up access to the asset class to individual investors with their crowd raise on Seedrs.
* What crowdfunding means for the future of venture capital.
* Eileen’s love of Arsenal and why she’s not a fan of…
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Apr 27, 2021
[AGM Podcast] CAIA CEO Bill Kelly on educating the world about alternative investments
Today we have a special guest who is one of the foremost leaders in the alternatives industry.
Bill Kelly is the CEO of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA), the leading global educational and professional credentialing body dedicated to delivering greater knowledge and alignment for investors in the alternative investments space.
Bill and I had a fascinating conversation. His thoughtful and eloquent views on the evolution of the alternatives space led us to talk about:
* How the “Retirement Promise” has impacted consumers and investors and what it means for alternative investments.
* The importance of being a fiduciary.
* How CAIA consistently evolves their educational program to cover emerging trends like crypto and DeFi.
* How partnerships with leading investment platforms in the alts space like iCapital help to move the industry forward.
Bill brings an operator’s perspective to CAIA. Prior to joining CAIA in 2014, Bill was the CEO of Boston P…
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Apr 20, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Forge CEO Kelly Rodriques on how private markets are the new public markets
Today, we have a special guest who is changing the mechanics of private company stock ownership and investing for the better for employees, companies, and investors alike.
Kelly Rodriques is the CEO of Forge, the leading private company stock exchange and investment platform.
On today’s podcast, Kelly and I discuss:
* How private markets are the new public markets.
* How companies like Forge are unlocking a huge wealth management opportunity hidden in plain sight.
* How Forge is creating new accredited investors directly on their platform thanks to secondary market liquidity - and what that means for the alts space.
* How the private markets can innovate with structured products like index funds that provide diversified exposure to blue-chip private company stocks.
* How and why strategics like Deutsche Borse and BNP Paribas see Forge as critical to the private markets ecosystem.
Kelly has helped build out the private market investment ecosystem at scale for Forge, bringing t…
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Apr 18, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Boost VC Co-Founder & MD Adam Draper on being one of the first investors in Coinbase
We had a special live episode of Alt Goes Mainstream this past Wednesday on $COIN Day to celebrate a landmark moment in the crypto industry that has, in many respects, signified the mainstreaming of crypto - the Coinbase IPO.
Adam Draper, the Co-Founder & MD at Boost VC, was one of the first investors in Coinbase’s Seed round in 2012.
He joined the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to discuss what he saw in Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s Co-Founder, when he decided to invest in their Seed round, what excites him about the future of crypto, and why he looks for founders who are rational people doing very irrational things.
Adam is also learning how to play the guitar, so we were lucky enough to hear the exclusive release of a special new song that he created just for this podcast. Adam’s attempt to play the guitar and sing was quite admirable, but I think I can safely say that he should stick to investing as his career choice.
Adam is one of the most thoughtful, energetic, and vibrant…
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Apr 15, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan on how one of the founding fathers of the ETF industry saw a similar opportunity to mainstream crypto
Crypto week continues with another industry luminary discussing the past, present, and future of the crypto space.
Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we have Matt Hougan, the Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise Asset Management and one of the leaders in the crypto industry.
On today’s podcast, we talk about:
* Matt’s views on crypto.
* How Bitwise is bringing crypto to the wealth advisory community.
* How crypto’s evolution is similar to that of the ETF market.
* How community has played such a big role in making crypto go mainstream.
Matt has had an illustrious career at the forefront of major industry shifts in financial services. He’s been a pioneer in the creation of not just one, but two major asset classes and financial products. First ETFs, and more recently, crypto. Matt is the CIO of Bitwise Asset Management, one of the leading crypto-asset investment platforms with over $1 billion of AUM. Under Matt’s leadership, Bitwise has pioneered the first crypto…
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Apr 6, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Dynasty Financial Partners Co-Founder & COO Ed Swenson on how a $60 Billion wealth management platform thinks about alternative investments
Today, we have a special guest from an industry leader in the wealth management space.
Ed Swenson is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the wealth management space. Ed is the Co-Founder and COO of Dynasty Financial Partners, a leading RIA technology services platform.
Ed and I had a really interesting discussion about the future of the wealth management industry – and how alts will play a role in the evolution of the space. We discussed:
* How Ed & his co-founder Shirl Penney started Dynasty out of a garage.
* How and why the wealth management industry is changing.
* How Dynasty is a champion of entrepreneurs in the wealth management space.
* The democratization of access and advice in wealth management.
* How and why wealth managers should have alternative investments in their portfolio.
* How VCs will soon realize that the RIA space will be a great source of LP capital for them.
* Why advisors allocating to “alt alts” (like crypto, sports cards, collectibles,…
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Mar 31, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Republic Founder & CEO Ken Nguyen on championing the retail revolution and democratizing access to private markets
Today, we have a guest who is powering the retail revolution by democratizing access to private investing.
Ken Nguyen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Republic, a multi-asset investment platform for private markets. Republic recently raised a $36 million Series A led by Galaxy Digital, with participation from Nomura, Motley Fool Ventures, Tribe Capital, Prosus Ventures (fka Naspers), and Broadhaven Ventures.
This was such a fascinating conversation. We talked about:
* Ken’s drive for starting an investment platform that could enable everyone to participate in wealth creation in private markets.
* How investing and owning equity is part of the American Dream.
* How Republic has unlocked access to private markets for all investors.
* “Lean back vs lean forward” framework applied to investing (h/t Rishi Garg of Mayfield Fund for the “lean back vs lean forward” framework).
* How community is such a big driver of Republic’s growth and success as a business.
Ken is a pioneer…
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Mar 16, 2021
[AGM Podcast] Alt Founder & CEO Leore Avidar on how sports cards are becoming an investable asset class
Today we have a guest who is building the infrastructure for a new asset class – sports cards.
Leore Avidar is a visionary founder who is building a ground-breaking company, Alt, which is backed by Alexis Ohanian and Seven Seven Six, as well as First Round Capital, Addition, SV Angel, Box Group, and Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures.
Alt is on its way to changing how we think about investing.
This was such a fun conversation. We talked about:
* How Leore’s experience and excitement for building infrastructure has dovetailed with his passion and love for sports and collecting cards.
* How he’s building the future of the sports card market with Alt by creating the tools and infrastructure enable people to value, trade, and store their investments.
* How cards can be a tool to connect different generations through financial literacy.
* How culture can become a financial asset.
Alt is the culmination of Leore’s experiences working on Wall Street as a trader to working o…
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Mar 12, 2021
[AGM Podcast] iCapital Network CEO Lawrence Calcano on how to build an alts platform for the wealth management community
I’m thrilled to kick off the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast with a special guest - one of the leaders in the alts industry, Lawrence Calcano of iCapital Network.
Lawrence and I had a great discussion about how to build an alts platform for the wealth management community, why iCapital serves such a big need for wealth managers and banks, how iCapital thinks about democratization of access and focuses on diligence, education, and quality control on their platform.
Lawrence has built iCapital into one of the category defining companies in the alts space. They have democratized access to high quality alternative investment products for the wealth management industry.
Lawrence and the iCapital team have built the de facto operating system for the wealth management community to invest in and access leading institutional quality alternative investment fund managers.
They’ve grown to almost $70 billion of AUM across 740 funds and 125,000 underlying accounts in less than 7 years.
In the…
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Mar 8, 2021
Welcome to the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast
Welcome to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
I’m excited to share the Alt Goes Mainstream trailer here in advance of our first episode that drops later this week.
We’ve been building up to this point for a while … and 2020 has witnessed a shift in how people think about investing.
There have been a confluence of events that have changed people’s minds on how they invest.
Everything from a low interest rate environment to technology innovation that has democratized access to alternative investments to the rise of influencer investors.
No longer do we live in an era of the 60/40 portfolio.
People – particularly Millennials and Gen Z – want to invest in everything from startups to sports cards to digital collectibles.
And we’ve hit the point where we have seen the collision of culture and capital.
All sorts of assets are being financialized – and it’s going to have a big impact on how we invest and what we invest into.
Alt Goes Mainstream will cover how a previou…
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Feb 22, 2021
Building a Brand (Part II): The Magic of Music
How can a piece of music be the expression of financial products?
How can a piece of music exemplify how much finance is changing and capture how people are investing in everything from startups to sports cards to art to dinosaur heads?
How can a piece of music express how Alts are Going Mainstream?
Lenny Skolnik (aka Yung Spielburg) worked his magic and figured out how to do it.
Lenny is a prolific music producer. He has produced music that has touched and inspired millions of listeners around the world. He’s worked on Grammy winning and Recording Industry Association of America certified platinum records. He’s worked with prolific musicians and creators in the US and abroad. He works closely with Japanese music icon, actor, and philanthropist Miyavi, where they’ve teamed up to produce and co-write five full-length albums together. And, more recently, you may know Lenny for creating the music theme song for the All-In Podcast, the podcast with Jason Calacanis, Chamath Paliha…
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