Rohati Capital has closed its inaugural venture fund at $50 million, exceeding its original $30 million target. The firm was founded by former Amazon operators who previously helped build and lead Amazon Lending.
Rohati Fund I attracted limited partners from 16 countries, including 17 Amazon executives and alumni, 27 professional venture and private equity investors, 20 founders and CEOs, and eight chief investment officers.
The fund allocates approximately half of its capital to a concentrated portfolio of specialist venture funds and the other half to direct investments in companies sourced through those managers. The structure is intended to combine direct venture economics with diversification across managers, vintages, geographies, and strategies.
Rohati’s portfolio includes fund positions in Union Square Ventures and Gradient Ventures as well as early direct investments in companies including SpaceX and PayJoy.
The strategy is primarily aimed at individual investors and family offices that historically have had to choose between concentrated exposure through a single venture fund or the additional fee layer associated with traditional fund-of-funds structures.
Rohati’s founding team draws heavily from Amazon. Managing Partner Nick Talwar launched and led Amazon Lending, while Investing Partner Jason MacRae built the machine-learning models behind the business and later succeeded Talwar as its general manager.
Amazon Lending, which launched in 2014, used machine learning to underwrite marketplace sellers that could be underserved by conventional credit scoring. The business extended more than $1.5 billion of credit across the U.S., UK, India, and Japan within its first two years.
Most of Rohati’s investment exposure is currently in the U.S., particularly among Bay Area venture firms and AI companies. Internationally, the firm uses a fund-first strategy focused on local specialists, with India representing its largest market outside the U.S.
KEY QUOTES:
“We saw the same pattern in venture that we saw at Amazon: a category that works, but best at the very top, and mostly for people who already have a way in. We built Rohati so individual investors can get the economics and the path to distributions of a direct fund, with diversification across vintage, geography and strategy, assembled from the best ideas of managers we have worked alongside for years.”
Nick Talwar, Managing Partner of Rohati Capital
“At Gradient, we work closely with AI founders on the technical, product, and scaling challenges of building enduring companies. Limited partners with deep industry experience make that work stronger. The Rohati team’s experience building and applying machine learning at Amazon gives our founders access to a rare operator’s perspective, and gives Gradient a distinctive advantage as we help the next generation of AI companies grow.”
Darian Shirazi, General Partner at Gradient Ventures
