VIM Investors

Description

VIM* Investors is a new venture capital firm focused on pre-IPO secondaries and emerging managers. Recently launched by Luis Valdich (20-year VC career at Citi Ventures, JPMorgan, Softbank; ex-McKinsey; HBS grad) who has invested in ~100 startups, ~25 funds. Previous investments: 7 IPOs (Square/Block, Palantir, Tradeweb, AirLease, Markit, BATS, Solid), 25 acquisitions, 10 on IPO track Multi-pronged VC strategy, investing in (1) pre-IPO hidden gems (liquidity to motivated sellers at big discounts); (2) pre-IPO visible gems (liquidity to willing sellers after oversubscribed rounds); and (3) emerging managers (LP secondaries at discounts and new commitments potentially with special rights). We are also providing (4) vetted intros to access iconic scaleups like SpaceX per LP requests to build goodwill. Currently investing via SPVs, we are vetting appetite for Managed Accounts/SMAs and will consider raising a Fund eventually. Our firm’s edge is our access –leveraging our two decades of domain expertise, network, and trust in the VC ecosystem. Why pre-IPO secondaries and emerging managers, and why now? Barbell: concentrated/mid term; diversified/longer term The VC secular trends of increased funding despite scarce exits (as some scaleups chose to stay private longer while others had to, due to market conditions) have caused a liquidity crunch, with LP distributions at 15-year lows, and >1500 unicorns today vs. 140 a decade ago. Due to this liquidity crunch and our edge, we can find motivated sellers of hidden gems and willing sellers of visible gems in high quality companies with ~3x target base case returns in 2-4 years for hidden gems and 3-6 years for visible gems. We also invest in emerging managers, who tend to outperform and collaborate better with LPs (e.g., sharing co-invest/pro-rata deals). This diversified strategy (funds invest in 25-30 startups) and longer-term strategy balances our concentrated/mid term pre-IPO strategy as new funds have 10-16 years lives