(Bloomberg) — Andreessen Horowitz, the enterprise agency that was an early investor in Twitter, Meta’s Fb and Airbnb, is now seeking to handle the fortunes of the startup founders it helps make wealthy.
The agency, nicknamed a16z, employed Michel Del Buono as chief funding officer for the brand new enterprise that may present a spread of wealth-management companies to a16z companions and the executives of its portfolio firms, in accordance with individuals with information of the plans. Del Buono most not too long ago was the CIO at Jordan Park Group, which oversaw $17.6 billion on behalf of high-net-worth purchasers as of December.
A spokeswoman for Menlo Park, California-based a16z confirmed Del Buono’s hiring, however declined to remark additional on the brand new enterprise.
Wealth administration is commonly a massively worthwhile enterprise and as soon as cash comes within the door, it’s typically sluggish to exit. Managers historically cost 1% of the property they oversee, and revenue margins can attain 50%, mentioned Ben Phillips, head of asset administration world advisory companies at Broadridge Monetary Options.
Progress might be meteoric. Iconiq Capital, the Silicon Valley wealth supervisor that began in 2011 and has managed the fortunes of Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sheryl Sandberg, now oversees greater than $80 billion, up from about $50 billion at first of final 12 months.
Del Buono led investments at Jordan Park beginning in December 2017, and earlier than that spent nearly eight years at Makena Capital Administration, the place he headed portfolio funding technique and direct investments, in accordance with his LinkedIn profile. He acquired a PhD in administration science and engineering in 1999 from Stanford College.
Co-founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, a16z has historically been very concerned in selling the businesses it backs, from recruiting executives to holding mini-conferences to introducing corporations to potential purchasers. It hopes to capitalize on the shut relationships with founders to win the enterprise of managing their fortunes, in accordance with individuals with information of the agency’s pondering, who requested to not be recognized as a result of the data is personal.
The agency has exited greater than 100 firms, in accordance with its web site, and a slew of them, together with Pinterest Inc., Slack Applied sciences Inc., Instagram Inc. and Coinbase International Inc., depend their founders as billionaires.
A16z rival Sequoia Capital launched a cash administration product, Sequoia Heritage, in 2010 with $550 million from companions and out of doors capital. It now manages $16.4 billion and has prolonged its companies to outdoors establishments together with Oxford College, in accordance with the endowment’s newest monetary report. Sequoia, although, doesn’t present a full slate of companies, corresponding to property planning, to its rich purchasers.
–With help from Janet Lorin and Tom Maloney.
