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The 2015 Fintech Finance 35: Alan Freudenstein and Gregory Grimaldi, Credit Suisse NEXT Fund

No. 18 Alan Freudenstein & Gregory Grimaldi, Credit Suisse NEXT Fund

By Tyler Davies

November 09, 2015

< The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

Alan Freudenstein & Gregory Grimaldi

Co-heads

Credit Suisse
NEXT Fund

From 2000 to 2013, Alan Freudenstein and Gregory Grimaldi quietly assembled a portfolio of private investments in financial technology companies within Credit Suisse Asset Management. Their holdings included data aggregator Capital IQ, which McGraw Hill Financial bought in 2004; Markit, a London-based information services company that went public in 2014; and trading venues Archipelago, BATS Global Markets and FX Alliance. In 2013 the New York–based duo transferred 20 of their investments into a new limited partnership, the Credit Suisse NEXT Fund. Investors include Credit Suisse family-office clients, sovereign wealth funds, funds of funds and secondary fund investors. (Pensions, endowments and foundations will have to wait for a future vehicle.) “It was never easy to make investments from bank balance sheets, but after Volcker it got much more difficult,” explains Freudenstein, 51, a University of Chicago MBA and former Booz Allen Hamilton consultant. NEXT, which closed with $405 million in assets in early 2014, draws knowledge and insight from Credit Suisse’s staff. “That’s the secret sauce,” says Grimaldi, 41, a University of Pennsylvania engineering and computer systems and finance graduate. Recent investments include online lender Prosper Marketplace and cognitive-computing pioneer Digital Reasoning, for which NEXT co-led a $24 million Series C round with Goldman Sachs Group in October 2014. The fund’s deals average between $10 million and $20 million, usually at later stages, although the team is open to all stages. Its primary investment consideration is the ability to influence a portfolio company’s outcome. “If it’s just money, then we’re probably not the best investor,” says Freudenstein, who describes the fintech climate as “very competitive — we focus on opportunities where we can add value, which helps us avoid highly competitive situations.”

The 2015 Fintech Finance 35