Omidyar Family Office Spins Out Fintech Investor Flourish Ventures

Omidyar Network is the family office, that is listed in our list of single family offices in the United States, of the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his family, focusing on impact investing. So far, the family office invested more than $1.4B in for- and non-profit organizations. For example, Omidyar Network invests in verticals like Education, Financial Inclusion or Property Rights. In March 2019, the group has spun off its fintech investment division into a separate entity, called Flourish Ventures. If you’re looking for more single family offices in California you should check our list of single family offices in California.

Starting with a $200M portfolio and $300M cash

Flourish will probably have a better start than most new venture capital funds. The new investment fund will manage an already existing portfolio worth $200M. Portfolio companies include insurtechs like MicroEnsure, challenger banks like albo or Tandem or Consumer & SME Lending firms like zest or Lidya. Additionally, the firm will be able to invest $300M within the next 5 years. Furthermore, the new family-office-incubated VC can rely on 18 professionals and already established structures.

Impact Investing in the Financial Industry

Flourish describes the core problem they want to tackle within a blog post published on Medium: “We live in an era of unprecedented wealth, but unequal opportunities”. Therefore, Flourish “seek(s) out entrepreneurs who understand both the powerful potential of technology and its risks. (Flourish) partners with innovators around the world who leverage that power to improve people’s lives.” The three managing partners at Flourish (Arjuna Costa, Emmalyn Shaw, Tilman Ehrbeck) will focus on verticals in the financial industry: venture investments in big data & analytics, challenger banks, consumer & SME lending, digitization of money, insurtech, personal finance and regtech as well as ecosystem building.

Picture source: Sharon McCutcheon