David Friedman

💡Emerging GP Fundraising Insight #9: Portfolio Construction Questions Will Come Early LPs will press you on: • Follow-on strategy • Pro-rata participation • When you don't follow on • How much concentration risk you'll tolerate You don't need perfect answers but you do need thoughtful ones. If you haven't considered these scenarios, LPs will question your ability to manage a portfolio. Takeaway: Even hypothetical scenarios deserve a thoughtful response. Lack of prep reads as lack of capability. What's the toughest portfolio construction question you've gotten from an LP?

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Starboard Built Big Stake in BILL Holdings, Plans to Nominate Directors "Activist investor Starboard Value owns an 8.5% stake in BILL Holdings and intends to run a boardroom challenge to push for changes at the financial automation software company that serves small and midsize businesses around the world, it said in a filing on Thursday. "BILL Holdings, which has a market value of nearly $5 billion and sees more than 1% of U.S. gross domestic product flow through its platform, saw its stock price lose nearly half of its value since January." #corporategovernance #boardsofdirectors #activistinvesting #shareholderactivism #governancearbitrage https://lnkd.in/gQhi_A5b

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How Alpine Space Ventures built deep-tech conviction into a strong Fund I performance and why Fund II is all-in on real space infrastructure. Joram Voelklein https://lnkd.in/eEKxVQDT

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🚨 Initiation of Coverage – Chaos Industries 🚨 Pleased to announce that IPO CLUB’s flagship America2030 fund has begun coverage of CHAOS Industries in the defense sector. The company’s most recent valuation is $2 billion, following its $275 million Series C funding round completed in May 2025. This round was co-led by Accel and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), bringing CHAOS Industries’ total funding to approximately $490 million since its founding in 2022. CHAOS Industries competes directly with innovative defense technology companies such as Anduril Industries, Shield AI, and Palantir Technologies, alongside long-standing legacy defense contractors. This is a highly competitive space, which is why we benchmark CHAOS Industries’ valuation against both established private firms and public market peers with transparent valuation references. Jordan Yip, MS, Eva Cassman

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Howdy, partner 🤝 Another week, another major set of partnerships at the intersection of traditional and alternative asset management. Two trillion-dollar asset managers have once again struck deals with private markets managers to create curated investment products across public and private markets investments. PGIM, the $1.44T AUM asset management business of Prudential Financial, forged a partnership with Partners Group, the $174B AUM alternative asset manager, to deliver multi-asset portfolio solutions that span public and private markets exposures. $1.6T AUM Franklin Templeton brought together three leading infrastructure investment firms — $106B AUM DigitalBridge, $37B AUM Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), and $27B AUM Actis (a part of $114B AUM General Atlantic) — to deliver bespoke private infrastructure solutions to individual investors. This partnership between Franklin Templeton, DigitalBridge, CIP, and Actis could signal a new era for private markets. Private markets has moved from balancing customization with scale to now focusing on curation at scale. Perhaps this partnership marks the beginning of a wave of partnerships that focus on curation at scale, where traditional asset managers or generalist alternative asset managers look to partner with specialists to create and deliver products to the wealth channel. Another reason why we might see an uptick in partnerships relative to acquisitions? Integrating two different investment cultures can be quite challenging. An asset manager’s investment performance is a reflection of their investment culture. Their investment culture is driven in large part by their DNA. Partnerships could free up firms to focus on who they are, rather than who they might want to be, which is becoming an increasingly loaded — and expensive — question in the converging worlds of public and private. Read on for more👇 This week's Alt Goes Mainstream's AGM Alts Weekly, brought to you by Permira, covers: 🗂️ AGM Index, an index that tracks the leading publicly traded alternative asset managers. 📊 Chart of the Week presented by MSCI Private Assets: Is return to office the new WFH? 🗞️ AGM News of the Week, this week covering: 📌 Bloomberg's Stephan Kahl on Trade Republic partnering with EQT Group and Apollo Global Management, Inc. to offer private markets investments other D2C investment platforms Scalable Capital & Ramify offerings. 📌 Bloomberg's Leonard Kehnscherper and Silas Brown on a possible Apollo Global Management, Inc. x Schroders partnership. 💻 Who is hiring: Senior-level positions from companies Blackstone, KKR, Apollo Global Management, Inc., Ares Management Corporation, Blue Owl Capital, Franklin Templeton, iCapital, Goldman Sachs, Partners Group, Ultimus Fund Solutions, Cerity Partners, JPMorganChase, SageSpring Wealth Partners, MSCI Inc. Subscribe👇 to see the latest trends & navigate this rapidly changing landscape as alts go mainstream. https://lnkd.in/e46Np7Hj

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I think we have the logic the wrong way round. Yes, it's tough to launch first time funds but: 1. The rise of independent sponsor-supporting LPs has given new firms a route to market 2. Investors at GPs are losing patience with longer distribution of carry (why wait for a tiny share of the economics of a large fund with a large unrealized portfolio) 3. Flattening returns in the large and mid-cap space opens an opportunity for smaller firms 4. There's more support for new firms than ever before One of the most common questions I receive is "does the tough environment put off would-be firm founders?" My reply: if it does, then they probably should be founders in the first place. It's always tough, and the decision to start a firm can never be fully rational, but the people who start new investment firms believe their strategy has the ability to generate attractive investment returns. From what I've seen, as you look at the past two decades, the environment is increasingly constructive for new firms, provided they prepare, launch and scale in the right way. #emergingmanagers #alternatives #fundraising #capitalraising #gpseeding #gpstaking #privateequity #privatedebt #vc #venture #venturecapital #pe #firsttimefund US Emerging Manager Institute (USEMI), British Emerging Manager Institute (BEMI), Gulf Emerging Manager Institute, Global Emerging Manager Institute

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