18
Alan Freudenstein & Gregory Grimaldi
Co-heads
Credit Suisse
NEXT Fund
From 2000 to 2013, Alan Freudenstein and Gregory Grimaldi quietly assembled a portfolio of private investments in financial technology companies within Credit Suisse Asset Management. Their holdings included data aggregator Capital IQ, which McGraw Hill Financial bought in 2004; Markit, a London-based information services company that went public in 2014; and trading venues Archipelago, BATS Global Markets and FX Alliance. In 2013 the New York–based duo transferred 20 of their investments into a new limited partnership, the Credit Suisse NEXT Fund. Investors include Credit Suisse family-office clients, sovereign wealth funds, funds of funds and secondary fund investors. (Pensions, endowments and foundations will have to wait for a future vehicle.) “It was never easy to make investments from bank balance sheets, but after Volcker it got much more difficult,” explains Freudenstein, 51, a University of Chicago MBA and former Booz Allen Hamilton consultant. NEXT, which closed with $405 million in assets in early 2014, draws knowledge and insight from Credit Suisse’s staff. “That’s the secret sauce,” says Grimaldi, 41, a University of Pennsylvania engineering and computer systems and finance graduate. Recent investments include online lender Prosper Marketplace and cognitive-computing pioneer Digital Reasoning, for which NEXT co-led a $24 million Series C round with Goldman Sachs Group in October 2014. The fund’s deals average between $10 million and $20 million, usually at later stages, although the team is open to all stages. Its primary investment consideration is the ability to influence a portfolio company’s outcome. “If it’s just money, then we’re probably not the best investor,” says Freudenstein, who describes the fintech climate as “very competitive — we focus on opportunities where we can add value, which helps us avoid highly competitive situations.”
The 2015 Fintech Finance 35
1. James Robinson III 2. Jane Gladstone 3. Matthew Harris 4. Steven McLaughlin 5. Jonathan Korngold |
6. Richard Garman & 7. Amy Nauiokas & Sean Park 8. Thomas Jessop 9. Meyer (Micky) Malka 10. Hans Morris |
11. Maria Gotsch 12. Marc Andreessen 13. Barry Silbert 14. Jay Reinemann 15. Mariano Belinky |
16. François Robinet 17. Vanessa Colella 18. Alan Freudenstein & Gregory Grimaldi 19. Justin Brownhill & Neil DeSena 20. Rodger Voorhies |
21. Michael Schlein 22. Kenneth Marlin 23. Rumi Morales 24. Mark Beeston 25. Vladislav Solodkiy |
26. Fabian Vandenreydt 27. Derek White 28. Alex Batlin 29. Jeffrey Greenberg 30. P. Howard Edelstein |
31. Nektarios Liolios 32. Roy Bahat 33. Andrew McCormack 34. Lawrence Wintermeyer 35. Janos Barberis |
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