Founder Chase Coleman will now manage both public and private wagers. Shleifer will remain with the firm as a partner, transitioning to a senior adviser role effective Jan. 1, Coleman said Tuesday in a letter to clients.
“Scott’s decision to make this move after two decades of successful partnership is based largely on geography,” Coleman wrote. “Tiger Global is operating in-person out of our New York offices, whereas Scott and his family have made their home in Florida and want to stay there.”
Tiger Global found that having all of its employees together in New York “is highly productive and a better operating model for our firm,” Coleman wrote.
Shleifer, 46, has been the driving force behind the firm’s recent, massive expansion into private investments. The VC arm tripled to $65 billion by late 2021, then accounting for almost two-thirds of total assets. A year later, when the hedge fund tumbled 56% and firmwide assets plunged, venture bets made up almost three-quarters of the new total.
The hedge fund has rebounded 21% this year through October, a person familiar with the matter said.
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But Tiger Global’s fervent foray into private investments — it has made hundreds of bets over the past three years and raised almost $13 billion for its biggest-ever venture fund — preceded a sharp downturn for the industry. Beginning late last year, amid a rout in tech stocks, valuations of startups began to slide and companies sought ways to avoid the dreaded down round. Tiger Global marked down the investments in its venture funds by about 33% last year, resulting in a $23 billion decline in value. It has also slowed the pace of investments. The firm’s private wagers have included companies such as OpenAI, Stripe, Shein and TikTok owner ByteDance. Tiger Global has received a lukewarm response to its latest venture fund. As of June, it had raised just $2.06 billion, less than half of its target.
Shleifer’s transition puts the firm’s venture wagers in the hands of Coleman, who’s forming an investment committee for the privates business, which he will chair, according to the letter. Shleifer, firm partners Evan Feinberg and Griffin Schroeder, as well as Chief Operating Officer Eric Lane, will also be on the committee.
They will “support me in reviewing new investments and overseeing asset dispositions,” Coleman wrote.
Other associates at the firm, many brought on and mentored by Shleifer, “are ready to step up,” he wrote. The firm hired 12 people for its investment and research team since the beginning of 2021 and plans to add more.