Strategy: Venture Capital
Geography: Global
Net Total Return: 25% IRR
Fund Life: 8 years
SPV closing deadline: 31 March 2024
Westerly Winds Venture Fund I
Summary
Westerly Winds was launched to address the challenges that many entrepreneurs face when building companies and specialised asset management businesses in their formative years.
Working as partners with the executive teams on a round the clock basis, the team assists with financing, business development, stakeholder management and business strategy activities, thus adding muscle to some of the business’ critical functions.
After more than thirty five years combined at BlackRock, including the formation of a dedicated Family Office business, Westerly Winds draws from a broad and extensive network of peers, investors, operating businesses and official institutions able to make a difference to its partner ventures.
Current Portfolio
Founding Team
Karim Abdel-Ghaffar Plaza
Founder and CEO
Edward van Cutsem
Founder and Chairman
You can see the full biographies of each partner as well as the full Notion team in the following link
Key Terms
Key Fund Terms
Legal Name: Westerly Winds Venture Opportunities Fund I
Jurisdiction and Fund Structure: Delaware Limited Partnership
Style: Global Venture Capital, Series A-C
Management Fee: 2%
Carried Interest (profit share/performance fee to the fund manager): 15%
GP Commitment: 2-3%
Fund Term / Life: 8 years
Mara SPV / Feeder Terms
Legal entity: UK Nominee Ltd, also referred to as a "Bare Trust"
One off entry fee and establishment expenses: investors pay 0.5% of committed capital
All in ongoing fees and expenses: annual fee of 0.3% based on committed capital
Tax Status: Tax Transparent- no tax at the entity level but you will be charged local tax based on your jurisdiction
Capital Call / funding schedule: provide the following as a % of your commitment as per the following schedule
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TBC
Fund Documentation
Below you will find the fund's Presentation, Private Placement Memorandum (PPM), Limited Partnership Agreement (LPA). Please read through these and one you are done, click on the link below to generate the application form for our SPV.
Provide us with documentation for KYC
We utilise SumSub, a certified KYC provider to help process your documentation to verify your identity and pass AML checks. You can upload your documents via their portal, which is accessible by scanning the below QR code or by clicking this link :
You can mix and match how you upload documents and your progress will be saved. For example, you can scan the above QR code on your phone to take a picture of your ID and click the above link on your computer to upload your proof of address.
Required Documents
Individual Investors
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Passport / ID and Proof of address (utility bill, bank statement, mortgage statement, dated within 3 months)
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All documents need to be certified by a lawyer, notary or accountant in your local jurisdiction. Important that certification is done by a digital signature, otherwise original documents need to be posted.
Corporate investment entities
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If an investor is investing through an entity, all UBOs of the entity above 25% will need to provide the above ID documents in the manner described. The investor will also need to provide the following company documents:
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Certificate of incorporation or equivalent
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Latest annual account, (if available)
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Recent Articles of Association or equivalent
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Directors’ register (if not mentioned in the evidence of registration)
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Signed authorised signatory list (including signature specimen and powers)
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Current shareholder register for the investor and each company in the structure
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Structure diagram
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Signed UBO declaration with the explanation of the source of fund.
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Should you face any difficulties with uploading the documents onto SumSub, feel free to share them to client.services@marainvest.com instead
Click one of the following forms to generate the appropriate Application Form, whether you are investing in your own name or via a personal investment vehicle/on behalf of a corporate. Please also read the Nominee Agreement.
Sign up and invest now
Our client services team is on hand to answer any questions, get in touch at sasha.batica@marainvest.com or book a time to chat with us
Any questions
Frequently asked questions
Mara Invest Limited is an appointed representative of Talbot Capital Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our profile on the FCA
register can be found here. Mara Nominees Limited is a separate dormant administrative entity that will hold the shares of investors.We can accept any investor jurisdiction that your fund has permissions to accept.
The Nominee is merely a legal entity to hold interests in your Fund on behalf of the investor, with no discretionary investment decisions being made for investors by us.
As such, investors are making the decisions themselves to invest in the Master Fund and are not advised to do so by any investment manager. Additionally, the Nominee
does not have an Investment Policy statement or an Investment Management Agreement between investors. All these factors deem the Nominee not to be an AIF.Mara making a single commitment to the Fund on behalf of multiple underlying investors. This would result in your Fund’s administrator dealing with a single named LP,
and providing a single capital account statement etc.We conduct KYC on all investors. We are happy to share any KYC/AML information on each investor to save you doing the work, but other fund manager clients have
been happy with us signing a “letter of comfort” attesting to us doing these checks appropriately and providing aggregated information on underlying investors.Our SPV also takes care of FATCA reporting on each underlying investor, so our SPVs can be an effective tool for you to effectively outsource this burdensome work to
us to save you time and money.We work with you to determine the appropriate capital call schedule for our investors in line with your forecasted deployment schedule. We may call 100% of investor
capital at day 1 if you plan to invest over 1-2 years, or we may instead call 25% at day 1 if you have a steady deployment pace over 4 years.If we have a drawdown structure, a side letter will be required to protect other investors in our SPV from any liabilities brought about by any one defaulting investor in the
SPV. Typical LPAs treat the whole SPV entity as a defaulting investor even if only one investor happens to default. We have templated for this to share with your legal
team.
Highlights
Positive value for investors at day 1: the current 4 portfolio companies have progressed in value to that shown in the below picture, thus de-risking the opportunity for investors.
10 years’ experience at BlackRock: Karim and Edward established and led BlackRock’s family office, foundations and endowments business, overseeing $5bn AUM across public and private strategies. Specifically they advised these groups on venture investments, which is relevant to the fund’s strategy.
Strong operational mindset: the team approaches venture investing with a “private equity” mindset, with strong operational diligence, value add post investment and risk mitigation.
High levels of recent deployment: the team have advised and invested over $100m in deals since 2019 through Westerly Winds, leading to a strong pre-fund track record, $8m of which was their own personal capital.
Compelling thematic exposure: the fund’s current 4 portfolio companies give investors exposure to highly compelling sectors: lending/fintech; female health; climate tech; and adtech.