Peter Ackerson left his role as general partner at fintech-focused venture firm Fin Capital and started a new company, Audere’s capital.
According to your Linkedin ProfileAckerson, who joined capital end in August 2019—he stopped working at that firm in January of this year. While his profile shows that he became a general partner at Audere Capital in February 2023, it appears that he only updated his online presence to reflect his new role this week. There isn’t much public information about Audere other than that it is listed under the “Financial Services” category on LinkedIn and its tagline is “Championing American Innovation Through Early-Stage Technology Investment.”
A source familiar with internal events at Fin Capital alleges there was tension between Ackerson and managing partner and founder Logan Allin over alternative finance holding company Pipe, an investment Ackerson led and sat on. The exact circumstances of his departure are unclear.
For a while, Pipe was quite animated, catapulting herself into a $2 billion valuation on the premise that it helped SaaS companies generate non-dilutive cash with a model that provided seed capital for recurring revenue.
But last November, Pipe announced that its three co-founders were lower of his executive duties and that the search for a new “veteran” CEO had begun.
Shortly after that announcement, multiple sources who wished to remain anonymous, including an investor who says he stopped investing in the startup in its early days, told TechCrunch that they “heard” that Pipe had made approximately $80 million in loans to one or several cryptomining companies. The team or teams have since gone out of business and the $80 million is believed to have been paid off entirely, these people said. Pipe denied the claims and Luke Voiles was appointed its new CEO in February. Fin Capital (called Fin VC at the time) led the $60 million financing in June 2020.
When asked if the management shakeup and alleged prior circumstances at Pipe had anything to do with Ackerson’s departure, Allin told TechCrunch in an emailed statement:
Peter was an integral part of Fin Capital’s early growth and we greatly appreciate his contributions. Peter left the firm to pursue other opportunities and remains a close friend and ally of the firm. On Pipe, our team is working closely with Luke Voiles, who is an excellent CEO and has our full support as the team focuses on the next phase of growth for the company.
Ackerson declined to comment on the record.
According to LinkedIn, Maggie Sprenger he joined his new firm, Audere Capital, in April. Both she and Ackerson are Kaufmann Fellows, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Founded in 2018, Fin Capital invests in the B2B fintech sector with a focus on enterprise SaaS in the US and Europe. According to Crunchbase, it has more than $1 billion in assets under management. Fin was an investor in SoFi and has backed companies like Figure, Hummingbird, and Elevate.
While at Fin Capital, which appears to have been his first VC role, Ackerson served on the boards of companies such as Maxwell, Teampay, Pipe, SamCart, and Ternary. He previously served as CFO of SymphonyAI and served on the board of many other companies.
Prior to SymphonyAI, Ackerson worked at McKinsey & Co. in the fast-growing technology practice; with Wells Fargo in the global technology capital research group, including work on IPOs for Facebook, ServiceNow, Marin Software, and Groupon; and with Merrill Lynch in the technology investment banking group.
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