EQUIAM · Founded 2018 · Investing since 2019
The defining companies of this era are built in private.
EQUIAM invests in proven private technology companies in the years before they go public.
Why we exist
For decades, technology companies came to the exchange young, and the growth that followed happened in public, where anyone could own it. Today many cross $100 billion in value while still private and arrive at the exchange fully grown. An investor who waits for the IPO is buying growth that has already happened, at a price that reflects it.
The middle ground between early-stage venture and public markets is now enormous. We estimate more than $6 trillion of value in U.S. venture-backed companies worth $250 million or more.
Shares in these companies have never been easier to buy. However, the best of them still tightly control their cap tables.
We founded EQUIAM in 2018 on a bet that, as access widened, judgment and trust would decide who owns the companies that matter most. Eight years and 95 companies later, we still think so.
See the portfolioPrinciples
- 01
We underwrite relentlessly.
Every company is read for the risks that are easy to miss and for the opportunities the market has not priced yet.
- 02
A great company at the wrong price is a bad investment.
We work out what the shares are worth, regardless of what the last round or the last headline said.
- 03
Systems read the market. People make every decision.
Our systems handle the screening and much of the initial research across the whole field, so our people can spend their time on judgment.
- 04
We buy intending to hold through the public listing.
We buy in the years before a company goes public. If we sell before then, it is usually to rebalance the fund or return capital, and always through the company's transfer process. It is rarely because our view of the company has changed.
For companies
What a company can expect from us
Every company we invest in is one we expect to go public. This is how we behave as a shareholder on the way there.
- Capital for the rounds before going public.
- We take part in primary growth rounds as well as buying secondaries, on the way to a public offering.
- Orderly liquidity for long-time holders.
- We often buy from employees and early investors who have been with a company for eight years or more. Sellers generally come to us directly or through intermediaries we know well. Either way, every direct secondary goes through the company's right of first refusal and transfer process.
- Strict confidentiality.
- What a company shares with us is used for our investment decision and held in confidence.
- A simpler cap table.
- When many small holders want to sell, we can buy as one counterparty, with the company's approval.
- Long-term, low-maintenance support.
- We back management, ask for what a shareholder needs and little more, and aim to stay through the public listing.
Partners
Ziad Makkawi has spent his career building and leading investment firms. He saw that as private valuations grew, insiders would need liquidity, and that almost no institutional investor was focused on providing it.
John Zic was on the early team at Forge, one of the first marketplaces for private-company shares, where he watched employees of the strongest private companies sell their shares year after year.
They founded EQUIAM in 2018 and made its first investment in 2019. Since then EQUIAM has invested in 95 companies, 29 of which went public while it held them. Arin Nazarian has invested with them since 2020, and Joe Day since 2022.
Meet the teamThis page describes the firm and is not an offer to sell securities. See important disclosures