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Billionaire Family-Backed Firm Raises $100 Million Venture Fund

2024-08-15
By Ben Stupples (Bloomberg)

An investment firm founded by Jeff Bezos’ younger brother and a US private equity veteran that focuses on consumer bets has raised its first venture fund. HIPstr, the venture arm of Mark Bezos and David Moross’ HighPost Capital, raised $100 million from investors including rich individuals and institutional firms for early-stage deals outside its traditional buyout focus, the West Palm Beach, Florida-based firm said Thursday in a statement.
HIPstr has already acquired stakes in half-a-dozen startups, including residential-fencing platform EverFence and a vodka soda-maker founded by Kylie Jenner. It led a $10 million Series A fundraising for cremation services startup After.com that closed last month. The venture unit has invested almost 40% of its debut fund after moving to capitalize on valuations recently slumping, and it’s now looking to strike a similar number of deals with its remaining capital, Moross said. “Pricing dropped off a cliff,” Moross, HighPost’s chief executive officer, said in a Zoom interview regarding start-up valuations, which plummeted in the wake of interest rate hikes and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last year. “We took advantage of the down market.”

Consumer Riches

HighPost’s venture push comes after it raised more than $500 million for its 2022 inaugural fund from investors including the family of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Mark Bezos, HighPost’s founding partner and the former head of communications at the Robin Hood Foundation, was one of Amazon’s early backers, acquiring a $10,000 stake in 1996 that would be worth more than $1 billion today if he hasn’t sold any shares in the Seattle-based business. His parents and sister also acquired stakes in Amazon around the same time, filings show.

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Moross said being part of the Bezos family’s network has helped to differentiate HighPost, which he founded in 2019 with Bezos after previously setting up private equity firm Falconhead Capital.
“We have avoided many deals because of information that’s come from that ecosystem,” Moross said about the influence of the Bezos family. “And made deals too.”
HighPost’s other investors include Italy’s Azimut Group, which bought a stake in 2021 and helped open up the firm to Europe. HighPost has since become the largest shareholder in sugar-free cereal-maker Magic Spoon and acquired Centr, a health platform founded by actor Chris Hemsworth.
The firm pivoted into venture after coming across so many early-stage deals with its first fund. Fundraising for HIPstr started about a year ago, with executives Sol Goldwyn and Steven Himmel leading its investment team along with Moross and Bezos.
HighPost’s venture arm has about 30 investors in its debut fund, about half of which previously allocated to its larger private equity vehicle, Moross said.
“We’re only in early innings,” he said. “If all goes well, that will allow us to continue our mission.”