A 27-Year-Old Is Taking On Big Banks To Lure Mega-Rich Families

At first glance, 27-year-old Jasper Lau's investment firm is just like any other trying to strike it rich in the world of startups. It typically invests $10 million to $15 million a deal, and has had...

At first glance, 27-year-old investment firm Jasper Lau is just like any other company trying to make it rich in the startup world. It typically invests between $10 million and $15 million in the deal, and has had its share of successes and setbacks in this year's market turmoil.

However, behind the scenes, Lau is building a list of backers -

They are often young -

of more than twenty families of global billionaires, allowing him to look beyond rising rates and widespread inflation as he charts the ambitions of his 8,090 partners.

Lau, whose company name is a nod to the birth decades of many of her backers, started venture capital in 2017 and quickly got involved early

Make investments with the billionaire Osman clan behind the airline Sierra Nevada Corp. From there, the Ohio native increasingly built connections with the very wealthy families, sometimes meeting their youngest members in private Wall Street banks—

Wealth events and dinner hosting where he shared his goals of combining their capital and expertise in venture investments.

“A lot of the next generation people I met were smart, driven and ambitious, but they lacked access,” said Lau, managing partner at 8090, in a recent interview. 'I said to them, 'Look,

I can help get these opportunities and start working with you. "

With about $200 million in assets, 8090 is a small business.

However, it stands out as a competitor to the big banks, which for decades have tried to attract the next generation of the wealthy through events, dinners, and camps while they are still in their twenties and thirties.

What's at stake is massive: In the next 10 years, the younger group is poised to inherit trillions of dollars.

Sitting in the meeting rooms with that incoming clan, Lau said of the private fortune events he attended, "I felt the transformation of fortune."

After working on the San Francisco project-

A venture capital firm Lumia Capital and Class 5 Global, Lau 8090 was founded in June 2020 with a next-generation member of the Ozmen family, Kerem.

Their goal was to build a community of like-minded people who not only aspire to grow their wealth but also want to make a social impact.

The families behind the Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group Co.

Among the 8,090 partners are Canadian real estate company Keltic Canada Development and Haza Group, operator of Wendy's Restaurant and Taco Bell across the United States. Indian entrepreneur Divyank Turakhia, who in 2016 sold the advertising technology company he had set up with his brother, is also a supporter of the company.

Rise 8090 provides insight into how billionaire money is playing an increasing role in venture capital. Family offices - the private investment firms of the wealthy - have more than doubled their share of venture capital deals in the past decade, and allocations are set to boost even more,

According to research from SVB Capital and Campden Wealth published this year.

Since early 2021, he has bet 8,090 on more than a dozen healthcare, energy and finance startups, most of them in the United States. He is a major investor in artificial intelligence company Luminous Computing, along with Bill Gates and co-founder of Uber Technologies Inc. Travis Kalanick.

“Jasper was the first person to bet on me when I started Luminous,” said Marcus Gomez, CEO of Santa Clara, California, which received about $30 million from 8,090. Problem, it's one of my first phone calls, and it almost always has a solution."

Lau partially took a break from working on YouTube.

As a high school student in 2011, FiscalNote Holdings Inc. founder Lau added. Tim Hwang as a Facebook friend after finding footage on the award-winning entrepreneur's video platform.

The couple spoke and kept in touch. Before starting 8090,

Lau helped oversee early stage investments in FiscalNote that he said returned more than 200%

. Hwang later introduced Lau to Kerem Ozmen, who through his family's investment firm provided some of the funding to buy FiscalNote's $180 million media business CQ Roll Call from The Economist Group in 2018.

While FiscalNote's shares have fallen since it began trading in August after its merger with Duddell Street Acquisition Corp, the 8090 posted a 62% gain on the $18 million convertible paper that matured in July, Lau said.

With recession fears growing, Lau is confident of the small size of his company and its wealthy backers.

Even if some tech entrepreneurs prefer to make money from giants like Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz that have survived past recessions. While the 8090 usually raises capital on a deal-by-deal basis,

It is now finalizing a fund focused on tech founders and increasingly focused on debt transactions as start-ups avoid parting with equity in this year's recession.

“One might think things are slowing down, but they are accelerating,” Lau said. Our ability to be flexible,

Agile and fast at 8090 gives us an edge over other venture capital firms that have to go through a lot of bureaucracy.”

After initially focusing on the younger members of billionaire families, the 8090 now also works with the older generations on their venture investments as well as other areas, such as philanthropy.

a company,

Which has a small number of employees in Los Angeles and New York, may seek more supporters than the world's super-rich, but it must meet specific criteria.

"It's really about finding culturally appropriate families that will be long-term partners with us," Lau said.

"We want families who can actually add more color to what we've already put on our canvas."

BY
ProBuzzFeed