Falcon Edge Capital, the New York-headquartered investment firm, has closed the first tranche of its new $10 billion fund and is rebranding as Alpha Wave Global, a source familiar with the matter said.
Once the new fund — which is called Alpha Wave Ventures II — has completely closed, Alpha Wave Global’s AUM will exceed $15 billion, the source said. The firm, which began its life as a public market investor, plans to use the fresh fund to back startups globally, the source said, requesting anonymity as the details are private.
A single fund of $10 billion would be among the largest of its size globally.
TechCrunch reported last week that Falcon Edge was in talks to raise a new fund of $10 billion or more. The firm expects to raise slightly more than $10 billion for the new fund, the source said.
Alpha Wave Global declined to comment.
Founded by Rick Gerson, Navroz D. Udwadia, and Ryan Khoury in 2012, Alpha Wave Global has this year emerged as one of the most aggressive investors globally. It has been very active in a handful of markets including the U.S. and India, the world’s second largest internet geography where Alpha Wave Global has deployed about $2 billion this year and minted at least 5 unicorns including fintech CRED and house of direct-to-consumer brands Mensa. It’s currently in advanced stages to co-lead a financing round in social commerce DealShare, valuing the Indian firm at over $1.7 billion, TechCrunch reported earlier.
Alpha Wave Global, a Tiger Global grandcub, has borrowed many of the older firm’s strategies. Like Tiger Global, Alpha Wave Global is also very quick and aggressive with its investments. Instead of evaluating a startup in ad hoc, the firm maps the entire space and assesses whether it’s bullish about the category itself, Udwadia said in a virtual conference early this year.
The firm likes to get aggressive when most other investors are cautious about the market conditions, and slows down its dealmaking when everyone else is writing checks at a frenetic pace, he said. Alpha Wave Global has made over 40 investments in the private market this year, more than those it made in the past four years put together, according to CB Insights.
It has traditionally focused more on backing growth-stage startups, cutting checks in the range of $50 million to $150 million. But in recent years, through its fund called Alpha Wave Incubation, it has aggressively backed startups in seed and Series A financing stages.
