Noted venture banker Samir Kaji launches Allocate

Longtime venture banker Samir Kaji, who regularly blogs and tweets about GP-LP relations and trends, announced late last week in a Medium post his new gig called Allocate.

Kaji didn’t disclose details, but said in the Medium post that Allocate will provide a platform to help LPs “discover the most compelling fund managers while concurrently expanding the pool of investors that can access these high-quality and often overlooked assets.”

Kaji, who describes himself as a VC/tech advisor, venture blogger, active angel investor and banker, had worked in venture banking for two decades, most recently at First Republic Bank and at Silicon Valley Bank prior to that.

In addition to his client work, has Kaji regularly commented about fund managers and their quest to connect with LPs, particularly emerging fund managers. Over the past several years, he’s written about the increasing number of venture funds in the market, particularly emerging managers.

Kaji points out that the launch of Allocate comes at a time when the number of accredited investors has swelled and the supply side of non-institutional capital has also increased dramatically. Take, for example, family offices, which he says has increased to more than 11,000, up from 1,000 in 2008.

It would appear that Allocate aims to focus on connecting the growing number of LPs with an array of fund managers.

“The virtuous cycle of the same people raising from the same small group of highly connected LPs did not feel equitable or healthy to us when it came to driving real innovation,” he wrote. “I can’t begin to count the number of incredible fund managers over the last 15 years that have provided upper-decile returns and that were largely undiscovered in the early days.”