Today I'm in Venice with Kareem El Sawy. Kareem is a founding general partner at air root capital. A firm that specializes in structured equity for venture backed enterprise software companies.
Arrowroot is eight years old and has $700 million AUM. Prior to Arrowroot Kareem was in private equity at LA-based OpenGate Capital.
I'll clarify a little we should be at $700m soon enough. My CFO would would be all over me for that one. So Arrowroot growth equity that's all we do enterprise software is all we do It really is for companies that are past the VC stage not quite at large buyout stage not at large growth not looking for kind of a traditional unicorn round kind of a smaller growth check So $10 to 40M is the sweet spot I'd say $20 to 30M is our real sweet spot.
And just to clarify, because I think you're somewhere between private equity and venture capital. Private equity likes bootstrapped businesses, so you're not that because you're investing companies that have previously raised venture funding. that's the key that's the key to our whole strategy So some of our LPs are some of the largest VCs in the world names you know and our pitch to them was not every software company needs or wants VC money and not every VC wants to invest in certain software companies So there's a huge gap Where you're right The bootstrap businesses they have their niche mm-hmm , which is you know never made a mistake The you know three year perfect story Didn't burn a dollar Uh but the reality is most software companies have burned 300 million 50 million 10 million 70 million all over the place They're on series G they're on series a they're on series C they're on series one and it's really never a straightforward path we, what percentage of your companies have raised venture money when you guys are investing?
It's gotta be about
80% Okay Seems a lot,
It's a lot of 'em we love to work with founders, operators, entrepreneurs, every mix
Hmm But it is kind of a. I don't know a lot of firms like yours.
Yes. Okay. Hopefully good to hear.
Okay.
Because you're in between
like private equity, as you said, is like a billion dollars a lot of the companies too small for private equity.
Or tell me more about the companies
they're too small or they're um going through transition A lot of our growth capital goes towards one time transition of some sort Maybe it's an old product new product Maybe it's an invisible transition where the market finally came And so the product market fit was reached a little bit late and so a lot of times we'll come in and they've built a great product They built a great team they're booking business but it was super recent and they're still burning 10 to 15 a year and they need to reach 30 million and the VC behind it saying I've already given you 20 it's kind of outta my mandate to continue um go find growth capital And then the growth capital world says how come you're on series H and you're a 5 million run rate business It's just a completely different loop You know it's never a straightforward path
so they've kind of they fell off the venture path.
they
don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they could continue. Yeah
And some of our money is venture. Like, you know, we do take some venture risk.
But they, you know, they basically want a safety net , should they fall off
so they can continue the, unicorn path if they want, if they're able to sometimes it doesn't work out perfectly and there may be a 200 million exit or a hundred million exit. we sold a company for 54 million and it was hugely successful.
And the management team was happy with that. And the early investors said. We understand, you know, too little too late for us. Um, but I'm so glad that arrow root was brought on that, you know, they helped take the company to successful exit.
Hmm.
Um remedial question.
So
what is structured equity?
Yes. great question. So structured equity has a kind of downside orientation to it, almost equity debt, like terms in that, you know, we're really well protected. So to our LPs, which are endowments, pensions foundations, you know, family offices they want downside protection. You know, they, have venture exposure in their portfolio.
They have large buyout exposure. We provide them this kind of you know upside with downside protection, high floor, but with no ceiling um is the pitch, How do you get
downside protection?
Usually?
Yes. So usually it's a combination of many things. It can be through the valuations, the first look at it, you know, that's usually not the case. Um It tends to be more structure. So liquidation, preference, dividends, converting features, warrants some sort of cap on, on certain elements to it.
A lot of our downside protection is governance as well.
So if it's, we usually take a board seat uh but key blocks, minority blocks kind of a safety, you know, a parachute, you know, at year seven, we're still misaligned, if, if the board hasn't figured out how to get to an exit we have certain things that we can pull on to basically, encourage a sale.
Can you just tell me about a couple of those cuz a
lot of those are interesting and not things I know. Well, so.
Dividends for instancehow does the dividend
it's, it's very much a growing preference. So if you're a company that sees a unicorn exit billion dollar exit down the line we will work with you to say, okay, here's a valuation on paper. It's probably high. You know, it's probably above market, but I think the board and the management team really believes in this company.
And we want to give you that opportunity in exchange. We're gonna trade you the downside. And so we'll have a certain preference. We'll have a certain accruing dividend that grows over time. So if it is a subpar exit, you know, uh, that nobody's hoping for, our investors are, protected.
If it's a great exit, then our preference disappears.
And so it's kind of a performance based structure. So you wouldn't take our capital if you don't believe in the business and we wouldn't give you our capital. If we don't believe in the business long term.
Do warrants work similarly? Like, tell me about some of these things.
Cause I think they're interesting. I
don't
know a lot about 'em
yeah You know I'll give you an example Um so social chorus uh D I did which I guess it was five years ago now founded in oh six it was found owned operated They raised venture money uh about 40 million over time And the original product was just off market It just wasn't working It was churning too much it was kind of a nice to have and they realized they needed a need to have product pivoted the product It was working they had product market fit They had a new management team in still burning capital you know burning 12 million a and they went to the market and VC said you know this is an eight year old business You know pass my time They go to the growth groups and they say you know your growth to capital raised or your cash burned to capital raised raise show doesn't fit our mandate And so we built a relationship with the management team We explained Hey we'll give you the valuation that you're looking for but we're gonna need this kind of heavier structure and a dividend that grows over time to ensure that that we're not catching you know a falling knife here.
Mm-hmm
they loved it Uh because they had so much confidence in the business Things went really well basically quadrupled sold it to sumu sum is now taking it to a hundred run rate So basically seven run rate to a hundred run rate in five years with the structure came into play a little bit but not much
So Interesting do you have goals for these businesses? Like, do you want to Forex your investment or do you want to, how do you think about your portfolio construction?
Yeah, so we, we wanted three X every deal. 30% IRR, every deal gross. But with that kind of downside protection.
So if we're getting below a, 15% IRR on a deal, something went terribly wrong, which has happened. And we will kind of account for that in our portfolio. So probably R makes is hopefully we have a seven, eight X in there. You know, we got lucky somewhere, lots of twos and threes a few ones. And then, you know, sub ones, probably one, maybe two, hopefully not.
So, you know our portfolio should average out to a mid twos kind of fund, but with extremely low risk. So I have my whole family in it. I have my wife's family in it. I have my siblings, families in it because I can sleep well at night knowing that. portfolio as a whole is super safe.
Do the companies come to you via I mean, will you get inbound from venture VC funds who say,
Hey, I've got these
companies They're not quite, on track right now to raise the series E that would be expected.
Yes Yes So a lot of our job is building relationships with VCs letting 'em know we're here Um it's completely it's a marriage Right You know we both have to say I do uh
as
does Exactly So the earlier investors have to sign off on the deal
right?
Cause they have blocking rights. Someone
does,
they have blocking rights they wanna know that they're not handing their baby but the new lead investor is referencable high quality looking for winners wants to go you know the distance with this company that the management team's excited about and so they can block it you know a lot of times we'll see you know weaker companies that they send us and they say please you know let me know if you're interested in this company Yeah.
You know and and we filter quickly and we say look we need mission criticality We need resilience We need product maturity logo a big part of it Um so a lot of our deals I think half of our deals are referrals at this
point Um and then we have liaisons at 200 investment banks globally that know us well you know a hundred lenders And so we get a lot of inbound now it took a and a half years to get to that point But that's how it worked
Do a lot of later stage funds get deals from investment banks or is that because I just, I don't get any deals from investment
banks Right Like um,
but is that because these companies have started sort of a process with a bank because they're not quite on the traditional path.
Exactly Yeah So if it's a you know sub five run rate business probably not banked but maybe a lot of those banks know what we do And they say why don't you go talk to KA at arrow route mm-hmm and that might be a good fit And they wanna build the relationship with us because at the exit we always hire the bigger banks who hands uh Lincoln GCA Jeffries types groups because a lot of our companies like social chorus was ignored for a while You know I don't I wanna use the term Scarlet letter but you know it was overlooked hidden hidden gem and then we needed a brand name or prefer a brand name at exit to say actually this is a great company mm-hmm and this is gonna attract great you know strategic buyers PE buyers just like a normal process would,
answer this either way.
It's a two part question really. It's like, why do you do this? And not traditional venture or the other part is why aren't there more people doing this?
Yeah fantastic we answer that all the time with LPs Uh so you you mean me personally Why do
sure
it take
it, um we fell into it we fell into it a hundred percent So again Matt was the founder I joined him a few months after we were you know friends first through Wharton And um his strategy initially was just generally this was an inefficient market smaller growth checks for enterprise software you know five to 10 million was our initial check size.
mm-hmm
as we were starting deal by deal And then we kept running into this scenario where these are venture backed companies They're nice companies They're not you know necessarily you know I pable companies but they're solid And so we kept coming across 'em and saying This is a huge wave in the market And nobody's talking about it because it's not that sexy to talk about you know you want to talk about the Adobes of the world and you know the sexy wins and you also don't wanna talk about you know the problem children too much in the venture world And so there's this forgotten Cinderella company in every venture portfolio that needs a growth check just to get to where they're going Huh?
to answer your question So why Why does nobody else do this? Yeah it takes massive deal flow cause it's a needle in haystack strategy so it takes years to build and then you have to be referencable So we've done this full exits I think nine times And so we're known at this point as that kind of guide for these companies and saying look we've done it before We've taken it to huge exits We're gonna do it again for you And so when you're talking about exits, do your companies exit to private equity? ,
they can, I can tell you internally, that's what we underwrite to as a safety net, but it's not up to us. So, you know, we're minority investors.
Um, when we sold Everage to Salesforce, Salesforce came around, you know, a year before and we built a relationship and we got other bids and PE was certainly interested.
How does a company, like if you're coaching a company on exiting to private equity, and this is a company that has raised a lot of venture before, let's say,
right.
How do you help them think about exiting to PE and make themselves attractive?
Yeah Yeah So PE loves unit economics you know it's entering the finance world. Yeah. At that point as a company and you're saying I've got great LTV I've got great margins I've got you know LTV to C essentially um C not as important you know for PE they don't mind a longer payback period as long as it's you know really St Steady business we have a company fluent could sell it right now to PE we all believe that you know uh a Manhattan or an IBM is gonna pop up and we're just gonna hold on and and, wait for it Um whereas there's other companies that are more M and Aish more PE kind of mini platforms like an ambulance uh which we sold to quadr but the PE was right there So it's always plan B but we kind of expect it
so I, I don't know the PE world super
well,
so private equity, I often think that they're gonna buy a company that has good cash flows, as you say.
Right But that
they're gonna operate it more efficiently or something.
Right.
Um, but presumably when you're, um, investing, you're also helping them run efficiently.
Right.
Thread that needle for me a little bit.
Yeah. So, you know, when we find a company they're, they're under resourced, so I'm sure you deal with all the time.
There's a CEO, who's head of talent. Who's COO who's CFO, COO, and they need to silo. They need to delegate and they need to hire. So we built our ops team, , called SRG strategic resources group, and we say, okay, ATFA, gonna hire 50 people this year.
Our recruiting team, which is internal already has the, you know, database ready. We've been recruiting for this position in the bay area already. we're gonna hire them for you. It doesn't mean you can't look for it yourself. It's just there, if you want it. , and we hire talent. That's the first step.
And then usually the first year is a little bit of an experimentation, some, you know, AB testing and we're saying, okay, hiring is working. Let's keep going. Or we're saying, okay, hold, uh, you know, we need to catch up with kind of the bookings level that we're, reaching. , and that tends to be efficient just by the check size that we give them, you know, 30 million is, not a ton, , to work with.
I mean, it depends on
the company Right,
right.
Depends on the company. , and you know, we say, you know, if you wanna take risk, that's absolutely CEO's choice. Um, but at your own risk, right. As a management team, because if you want to go raise more capital, it gets harder and harder. Right.
Um, but how much ownership do you usually get?
I'd say on average 30, 35.
Okay. .
So you don't control things.
We don't,
there's a couple where we ended up controlling. It just, we kept putting money in but that's not our
distraction Okay.
and, you know, when you were just talking about those resources and like hiring 50 people or helping hire 50 people, a VC fund nowadays, we all have platform and that sort of thing.
Are you like
that? Or is it actually more beefy?
So we, we started at B BP.
Actually, still have operating partners for CRO CMO, talent.
Oh, that's a lot,
which is a lot. We used to have them on full time.
And then that team gave us the feedback that, , these companies. They can't influence them enough, you know, because it's a small company and it's entrepreneur led and mm-hmm, a lot of times they're saying I just I'd have bigger fish to fry than, working on my pricing optimization today.
so we kind of gave them this opportunity to make it more opt in and saying, okay, we have this operating partner, , let them know if you're interested, if this issue should come up. Um, they're there.
And I think we've done 200 kind of McKinsey, like, consulting projects over the years.
Got it And so, you know, when you are presenting all this to founders and you're explaining yourself, it's a new concept for them,
it is, it is. Absolutely. Yeah.
And you can tell me, you don't like this comment, but like,
and
structure has some negative implications.
through
talking through Thank you. The Structure has some talking
through.
Yes
talk me through how those talks go.
Yes. So very slowly, super slowly. It's uh, it's we don't throw term sheets out, you know, the way we kind of look at deals is through the years. And so of those, you know, 2000 deals, we look at a year, 200 interesting, those 200 go into kind of our priority list.
we visit them, we build relationships, we give free consulting, we help them with M and a we kind of show them what we've been doing. And some, obviously many of them don't come to fruition, but, you know, in particle, uh, which is a spectacular company in New uh, unicorn, we've known that company for six years before we did a deal.
They had raised a lot of capital from top tier VCs battery et cetera I believe And they needed more capital but they weren't ready to sell So for them they actually said oh arrow route We know them even though one of our associates reached out to them they knew us and they said actually you know what let's talk let's actually go meet And we had dinner in New York and then you know kind of talk them through it slowly
What are the things that
need because as I said, , a lot of the things you said at the beginning
blocking rights? You talked about
parachute.
I don't even really know. Do you block like a sale below a certain price
I
on
you or
yeah,
we could exactly you know blocking does it ever come up
Time
to time?
Uh blocking a sale of the company blocking more equity I think is key Uh because if we don't like the direction that the company's going we're not gonna take on you know kind of an irrational round but that's
kind of an N VCA standard minority rights you know anyway I think it's all of our CEOs know each other and they keep us honest Right and
they keep new deals honest and let them talk you know let them say you know like how did you solve for your cap table and goals We try to make it super easy Mm-hmm , uh collaborative because it is a hard decision Right. It's if things don't go well, it really hurts.
Right. It does. It does. But it's kind of a lesser of two evils of if it's not going well, then it would've gone to zero. Right. you know, in the human capital side of it's super
important Mm-hmm ,
which I think some groups, underestimate right at certain sizes at some point, the team needs to be happy, you know, with how the business is being operated.
Wait to double click on that. What is the team mindset at this point? And like why?
because, um, you know, the team is, driving the car and waiting for the gas, right? Yeah. And
they want partner that gives them, you know, more gas to get to where they want
to go.
I
I
gotcha.
Yeah What
you're saying is
they've stagnated for a while. And so employee or something.
yeah Under invested underinvested under invested. So they've grown.
Yeah
You
see all the terms that are better
terms
than Thank
you So they you know they needed help They needed a lot of people Yeah.
And so they don't want to be drip fed Yes. And they want 40 million on the balance sheet so they can build the business get too big exit get a carve out if necessary and a lot of the VCs are different the top tier are probably more uh practical and pragmatic about it I'd say where it gets difficult is when it's somebody's baby mm-hmm and they don't wanna let go And a lot of times that often results in the wrong thing for the baby
Uh got it. So you think
the big funds are a little bit more practical?
Yeah Like check the market Um we know the business we're obviously you know highly sophisticated investors let's see if we can sell the business Let's see those offers convince me CEO that even though there's structure on the deal which can come into play that this is the right thing for the company you know the fiduciary duty mm-hmm .
So at the end of the day we are actually the I don't wanna say the good guys yeah Cuz everybody's doing their best but it's much more about we are the right solution for I don't know what percent of the market 5% 10% that makes a lot of sense. Okay. One thing you said was carve out. I don't
what,
what does Yes. So carve outs are, it's basically a cash bonus for management employees
for transaction transaction bonus.
when they
get sold. And so. A venture back company, you know, the founders often diluted a ton.
Yeah. Um, and maybe they've gone a reup option pool. Maybe those options were issued at too high of a price. So when we come in, we redo the option pool, we redo the price, and then, um, at exit time we look at the proceeds and the share of the pie and we say, okay, this team, um, you know, they really deserve 15 to 20% of the pie,
you
know, 10% is kind of the market, share of the pie for kind of a PE backed company,
uh, for a founding team,
uh just for a team,
for a team
for the whole team
for, yeah. Let's say it's a hundred million dollar exit and the company's owned fully by PE
10%, you know, should go or better.
To the team. Okay. You know, employees included at minimum.
Okay.
Um, we've gone as high as 25 30 because we love the team, uh, depending on the deal. that also takes a lot of talking through and
with the board and saying, there's no market comp for this exit. You know, with this cap table and this team. what's right here? What makes people feel like they were treated well?
Mm-hmm
Like, so when you're talking to the founder through all this, to explain, how is this gonna play out in different scenarios?
Yeah.
You're
talking them through the, the waterfall of proceeds, right?
We are, we are. So we kind of, as I said, kind of take it really slow and, and talk about a deal concept and explain that, we're not a VC, this isn't gonna be a vanilla term sheet at a high valuation, you know, one X simple.
And we're not gonna be a buyout group, you know, LOI either it's in between mm-hmm and we'll describe the valuation. Here's how we came to it. And here's the range of, scenarios that we think are reasonable.
We show a wide range, you know, a hundred million to billion dollar exits, often mm-hmm
so
that they can see at some point, our return is actually helped steady, and there's kind of a catch up for many, many of our deals. And so they can say, okay, I am playing for a half a billion dollar
Right
I don't care about a hundred million dollar exit.
That's not happening. I, I, I have so much belief in my company.
Right.
I think I just had Mike Fernandez, um,
from B capital Okay.
He does grow stage at B capital and he was talking about the problem with structure in his mind is that it tends to persist, um,
right.
Once you have it, it is there for the next round.
Exactly And that's why we need to be long-term capital for our companies so that we can get them to a serious exit So if we do a series B then we often are the series C as well which tends to be much more straightforward And then we take it to a change of control at that point And then it's a brand new Cap table completely clean no more preps or anything like that Or uh we can raise growth rounds We did a huge growth round with premier at particle with sixth street at at SnapLogic 150 million rounds The companies were killing it And you know as I said earlier they were venture type uh companies they're you know very very high upside And so we we said our downside is in the strength of the company
we
need that pre anymore And
so
we're
let it go Yeah um, do earlier stage investors invest again, like when you're investing, is there that option, they invest alongside
you.
We
love it.
We love it. It shows great confidence. Um, we've done split rounds, kind of a new club. Double down opportunity for them triple down opportunity for them.
but we don't require it. You know, we, sometimes we a hundred percent of it.
Yeah, Everybody signs the consents, you know, we look for high stockholder approval.
Yeah. Yeah.
Gotit.
Um and then let's see, on exits for one more second. So
the world of private equity, are there certain people who you really like, Yeah Great question I think um the new kind of deal dejo is the growth bio Okay.
Tech growth bio. Okay.
Where PE firms have historically particularly V BC been viewed as the bad exit you know um evil buyout group comes Cuts costs Um doesn't invest in growth They're not as innovative minded not product minded they're finance people that has changed I think maybe over the last seven eight years there's a lot more growthy buyout groups that buy the company that have to win over the founder have to win over management and basically say look at this other deal I've done We bought the company we invested 50 million of growth capital We did M and aand we played for a big big exit you know versus know kind of these colder consolidators um that are looking at it like a machine and not people And you know that I think it's You can't win the best companies anymore without that strategy So Sumo comes to mind JMI even Toma has become uh a lot friendlier because of that Even Vista has become a lot Friender I think it's a market trend
I mean, it's like venture, didn't
used to be
like super friendly ventures. Now we're like the friendliest, like
we'll get
right back to you. Like
When I was raising capital venture was not that friendly
Um right
umhow So is growth buyout pretty much the same as growth becoming much more similar to growth equity except of the ownership?
Exactly So it's they might own 51% they are the partner you know they're not the boss.
I mean they technically are the boss at the board level but let's say they behave poorly It's such a small world that people say I don't do a deal with that group They kind of made the wrong decisions or they were too cur or didn't allow me to drive you know as I wanted to which they promised me you know at the many dinners we went to you know before selling the business So they have to say you know do what they
say
Which makes it
more attractive for VCs you know to sell their businesses to PE
And
you everyone gets an exit.
Yeah.
Right. So it's not growth equity. I mean, that's the other main thing is you're getting an exit
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we roll, we like to roll 30, 40% in a PE deal.
wait I'm sorry When you roll
30,
40%, that means you, 30% of your position?
Uh we exit 60% of our position and roll 40%
and in your world of enterprise sas, what are multiples that you think are reasonable?
at entry or exec? actually.
does it change?
Yeah. So at entry, you know, if you're above six X ARR, that's a high
price
you know
we've done we've certainly done that.
You know, we're probably six to 15. X is probably our range.
it
varies
a
huge amount.
It
varies
We all know
I think six X is the new market, normal
Um, but if it's a great company, 10
X uh and then if it's a spectacular company, it ranges, you know, to the moon
And are you trying to have that be different on exit
and then on exit, not really.
you know, because we, we are more structure oriented, um, we don't need to have it be a big exit. Do we want that? course. but you know, we underwrite to a normal exit, you know, kind of a PE exit
mm-hmm Yeah.
Which would be the same sorts of multiples,
hopefully
with bigger revenue
behind it.
and in this today's market that kind of bridge that kind of venture gap between venture and PE has gone wider So we're we're seeing
a
lot
more
deals you,
are
the
bridge
and we're the bridge, we're the tour guide through that bridge oh tour guide the
bridge.
or that you know,
helps you through it and so that there's a lot more companies now so the Tam for arrow root has gone bigger and our deal flow has gone become higher quality Our bar has gone higher
and the gap has gotten bigger because PE funds have gotten larger and they're just looking for larger ones and like venture, what has
so venture um they they've just they have an excuse to not come into the next round now. Mm. And they just basically say look the market and uh you know maybe better cut costs and maybe you know we'll find an exit somewhere but that company that has huge aspirations that wants to keep growing neither of those options fit so that bridge is much longer
anything
else
that's changed on the debt side of things?
Yeah. Yeah. So
we're not definitely not bringing dead in at closing, but post deal will always bring on just as normal lender, you know, SVB type group,
like
of venture debt type
venture debt, you know, 5% cost of capital.
Mm-hmm
really cheap capital just to augment our
capital later on, we, we find these kind of me equity players, like in espresso, that we bring in a lot, that's kind of more 12 to 15% cost to capital,
but they're more open minded and they're not covenant heavy and more equity minded. And so that extends their runway further.
Um, I think it has gotten a little harder.
I think you have to show less burn. You gotta show better in economics.
Do
you have certain spaces you're really excited
about?
Yeah Um I think big picture GRC we love just really really boring software in the background that you never rip out EER P we always love but less opportunities there we love international so there's a lot of American Doppel gangers in Europe and Australia that
of niche year software
companies.
So it's
kind
of like a, oh, you're like the, you know, sales force of
Europe Mm-hmm
or of
Asia So it was your whole team in
LA.
So 15 of us here, six in Miami, with Matt, our managing partner.
Um, yeah. Tell me a little bit more about the firm.
So
Matt started it. You joined pretty much at the start as well?
Yeah. Six, I think six months
after So
he he's the true true founder
I I
always make sure gonna yes.
Um, so what is he like? What do you like?
Yeah, it's a great question. So we, we are kind of a team combo.
Good
Good he's, very, uh, gregarious is, is a good word.
and just kind of always around and. Ubiquitous. And
so
I
don't know him though at all
Like was he
around
did
do a lot of the LA
tech
stuff
interesting about LA is that, you know, it's so early stage
seed here
that the gap between us and that is just a little too
long I
like I see you around
Yeah I'm around I'm around
I'm
an LA
we're kind
of neighbors too
too We're
neighbors
Um okay. But
keep going. So he's
Yeah he's a a fun guy really fun guy and he I was at open gate and Kind of got to know each other and just hung out first And then he asked me to be his number two and I said hell yeah let's do it Hmm Yeah
What is open gate known for?
So open gate is completely different big buyouts corporate carve outs So, uh spin out of platinum equity if you know them uh which is a $10 billion I think maybe more now uh PE firm in town and Matt Shi my partner works at platinum was that 15 years ago Okay
Um and so we we kind of joked around about that completely different lens And then he was at TA Um so that's where he kind of built his software uh career and then more importantly at ICG post MBA uh internet capital
mm-hmm have
heard of them by Dot com days.
oh yeah Maybe
like
that,
that
ICG Sure I was trying, I was still going with like the private equity world and
I'm like,
I don't know who the big PE players are.
Probably
I
but I, if you ask me like the biggest are there
like
three
that are like, who's Sequoia. Who's
Toma In terms of the big name.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Um TA TAwhat did you think of doing corporate buyout? Like how was that?
I highly recommend it for training what you learn doing that It's just so complex to carve out an entity from a corporation
financially, just understanding things or
everything Yeah Financially legal HR compliance, building models LBO models merger models It's about as complexity as it gets really challenging uh loved the challenge of it I found that I was more growthy in nature and what I wanted to be you know primary capital investor growth equity
investor,
mm-hmm
But I was certainly recommend it to anybody at an early age
Great, and let's keep going back in time. What was high school like for you? Uh, what were your parents doing when you were growing up
Yeah.
Let's I'll give you the whole story So um Not too interesting Well
then maybe
I
just
the
short
version Yeah Yeah
No I'm
no from so from LA.
Yeah.
Uh so Egyptian by background So my parents moved here 40 years ago from Egypt dad for he's an academic So he is a professor Where at uh USC
Cool. he's an academic
academic. My mom uh was a real estate agent down in Manhattan beach so I went to SC had no choice but loved it.
though what
do your,
how
do your
friends
They describe me as you know pretty balanced I think you know sports person primarily you know pretty easygoing I think people would describe me as that you know chill is what I get a lot
I can see it. Well, Kareem, thank you for taking the time with me today. Really interesting to learn about the work you're doing at Arrow Root. This was great.
Uhhuh
Thank
for having me This is awesome Love love the spot.
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