 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Investment management |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Founder | Brad Gerstner |
| Headquarters | One International Place, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Products | |
| AUM | US$10.7 billion (2024) |
Number of employees | 26 (2024) |
| Website | |
| Footnotes /references [1] | |
Altimeter Capital is an American investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts and Menlo Park, California. [2] The firm focuses on technology investments in both public and private markets globally.
In 2008, Brad Gerstner founded Altimeter Capital in Boston, Massachusetts. [3] It was launched with less than $3 million from Gerstner's friends and family during the financial crisis of 2008. [3] [4] Prior to that, Gerstner worked at PAR Capital Management as well as General Catalyst. [5]
A month after the launch of Altimeter Capital, an office was opened in Menlo Park, California. [3]
In 2013, Altimeter Capital closed its first venture capital fund at $75 million. [2]
In September 2020, Altimeter Growth Corp was listed on the Nasdaq (Ticker: AGC) raising $450 million. AGC is a SPAC which is a blank-check company. In April 2021 it was announced that AGC would merge with Singapore ridesharing company, Grab to help it list on Nasdaq under the ticker, GRAB. [6] [7]
In January 2021, a second SPAC, Altimeter Growth Corporation 2 was listed on New York Stock Exchange (Ticker: AGCB) raising $450 million. [8] [9] It was terminated early in December 2022 due to its inability to secure a suitable merger deal. [9]
For public markets, Altimeter Capital manages a long / short public equity fund that invests in technology companies. [10] The public equity fund is noted for its strong performance, averaging annual returns of 29.52% since 2011. [10]
For private markets, Altimeter Capital manages private growth equity funds that invest in both early and later stage technology companies. Its first private fund was closed in 2013. [2]
In January 2016, Altimeter Capital pressured United Continental Holdings to change its board of directors. [11] Gerstner released a statement stating how investors were disappointed with the poor performance and decision making of the company in recent years. [11] United Continental Holdings eventually gave in and changed its board of directors. [12]
In October 2022, Gerstner on behalf of Altimeter Capital wrote an open letter to Meta Platforms and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. [13] [14] In the letter, Gerstner criticized the company stating it had too many employees and was moving too slowly to retain investor confidence. [13] [14] He recommended reducing the headcount expense by 20% and limiting Metaverse investments to $5 billion per year. [13] [14] A few weeks later, Meta laid off over 11,000 employees. [15]
| Fund [16] [4] | Vintage Year | Committed Capital ($m) |
|---|---|---|
| Altimeter Private Partners Fund I | 2013 | 75 |
| Altimeter Private Partners Fund II | 2015 | 225 |
| Altimeter Private Partners Fund III | 2017 | 200 |
| Altimeter Growth Cascade Fund | 2020 | 100 |
| Altimeter Growth Castle Fund | 2020 | 32 |
| Altimeter Growth Lincoln Fund | 2021 | 60 |
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California which specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. As of 2022, the firm had approximately US$85 billion in assets under management.
The metaverse is a loosely defined term referring to virtual worlds in which users represented by avatars interact, usually in 3D and focused on social and economic connection.
A special-purpose acquisition company, also known as a "blank check company", is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring a private company, thus making the private company public without going through the initial public offering process, which often carries significant procedural and regulatory burdens. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), SPACs are created specifically to pool funds to finance a future merger or acquisition opportunity within a set timeframe; these opportunities usually have yet to be identified while raising funds.
Alec E. Gores is an American billionaire businessman who began making his fortune through leveraged buyouts of technology firms at the firm The Gores Group. He has also been instrumental in popularizing SPACs, beginning in the mid-2010s.
Khosla Ventures is a private American venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. It was founded by entrepreneur Vinod Khosla in 2004.
Thoma Bravo, LP is an American private equity and growth capital firm based in Chicago. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring enterprise software companies and has over $130 billion in assets under management as of 2023.
Chamath Palihapitiya is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American venture capitalist, engineer, SPAC sponsor, and the founder and CEO of Social Capital. Palihapitiya was an early senior executive at Facebook, working at the company from 2007 to 2011. Following his departure from Facebook, Palihapitiya started The Social+Capital Partnership, through which he invested in several companies, including Yammer and Slack. He is also the co-host of technology podcast All-In, along with David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg.
A cryptocurrency bubble is a phenomenon where the market increasingly considers the going price of cryptocurrency assets to be inflated against their hypothetical value. The history of cryptocurrency has been marked by several speculative bubbles.
Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta, and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services. Advertising accounts for 97.8 percent of its revenue. Originally known as the parent company of the Facebook service, as Facebook, Inc., it was rebranded to its current name in 2021 to "reflect its focus on building the metaverse", an integrated environment linking the company's products and services.
Arjun Sethi is an American internet entrepreneur, investor and executive. He is co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Tribe Capital. Previously, he was a partner at Social Capital and an executive at Yahoo!, where he launched Yahoo! Livetext. Prior, he was co-founder and CEO of MessageMe and was the CEO of Lolapps, the developer behind Ravenwood Fair. In December 2023, he became Tribe Capital's chairman and CIO.
Tiger Global Management, LLC is an American investment firm founded by Chase Coleman III, a former Tiger Management employee under Julian Robertson, in March 2001. It mainly focuses on internet, software, consumer, and financial technology companies.
Meta Horizon Worlds is an online virtual reality game with an integrated game creation system developed and published by Meta Platforms. On this multi-player virtual platform, players move and interact with each other in various worlds that host events, games, and social activities. They can also build and publish worlds similar to Rec Room. Horizon Worlds works on Oculus Rift S, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 3 headsets.
TCMI, Inc. better known by the name TCV is an American investment firm based in Menlo Park, California. The firm mainly invests in public and private growth-stage companies in the technology industry.
The Samsung Catalyst Fund (SCF) is the evergreen venture capital fund of Samsung Electronics. The fund invests in deep technology, artificial intelligence and big data startups. The fund's headquarters are located in San Jose, California, with offices in Seoul, Tel Aviv, and Paris.
ICONIQ Capital, LLC is an American investment management firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. It functions as a hybrid family office providing specialized financial advisory, private equity, venture capital, real estate, and philanthropic services to its clientele. ICONIQ Capital primarily serves ultra-high-net-worth clients working in technology, high finance, and entertainment. The firm operates in-house venture capital, growth equity, and charitable giving funds for its clients.
The SoftBank Vision Fund is a venture capital fund founded in 2017. It is managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers, a subsidiary of the SoftBank Group. With over $100 billion in capital, it is the world's largest technology-focused investment fund. In 2019, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 was founded.
The Dragoneer Investment Group (Dragoneer) is an American investment firm based in San Francisco, California. The firm focuses on technology investments in both public and private markets globally.
FTX Trading Ltd., commonly known as FTX, is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang and collapsed in 2022 after massive fraud perpetrated by Bankman-Fried and his partner Caroline Ellison forced the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Silvergate Bank was a California bank founded in 1988. The company began providing services for cryptocurrency users in 2016, and conducted an IPO in 2019. In November 2022, concerns were raised about Silvergate's health, after a fall in cryptocurrency prices and the bankruptcy of FTX. In March 2023, the bank announced plans to wind down and liquidate. Its failure was one of the first in the 2023 United States banking crisis.
Bradley Thomas Gerstner is an American investor and hedge fund manager. He is Founder, chairman and CEO of Altimeter Capital. Gerstner appeared on the 2022 Forbes Midas List after his firm's successful investments in Snowflake and Grab.
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