Episode summary
How She Got Peter Thiel to Anchor Her First Fund (Without Pitching Him)
How I Invest With David Weisburd
· · 41 min · Hosts: David Weisburd · Guests: Keri Findley
Summary
Keri Findley described Tacora Capital as a credit strategy built around illiquidity rather than conventional risk. Her core edge is finding assets that are temporarily mispriced because they are hard to own, then structuring them so different buyers can absorb different slices. She said her early work in structured credit taught her to look past scar tissue from the financial crisis and focus on what the cash flows and loss curves actually implied.
A recurring theme was forced selling and ratings constraints. Keri explained how downgraded mortgage bonds created opportunities because banks, mutual funds, and insurers had to sell, while a smaller buyer base let her buy deeply discounted securities and later restructure them into rated tranches. She also recounted the CXHE and SoFi examples as cases where time, performance, and regulatory recognition eventually unlocked value.
The conversation also focused on Tacora’s current model: financing startups and emerging businesses that need capital for invoice finance, insurance, receivables, leases, and related products. Keri said the fund prefers businesses where it can lend against real assets and often take a small equity slice, but scaling is hard because one bad deal can hurt a credit fund badly. She argued that ethics, alignment, and trusted counterparties matter as much as structure, and that Peter Thiel backed the fund after years of conversation rather than a formal pitch.
Key takeaways
- Keri Findley argues the best credit opportunities come from illiquidity and forced selling, not from taking the most risk.
- She said ratings arbitrage let her buy downgraded mortgage bonds at 12 to 14 cents on the dollar and later realize far more as the market repriced them.
- Tacora Capital now focuses on asset-based lending across fintech, insurtech, and specialty finance, with about 80-ish of the book adjacent to startups.
- Keri said credit funds are harder to scale than venture because deal sizes must be large enough to document, but one bad deal can damage the whole portfolio.
- She expects about a third of the portfolio to wind down and prefers businesses where the underlying asset still produces value even if growth stalls.
Notable quotes
“I don't think they're on the risk spectrum, and I look at it just differently. I think we're on the illquidity spectrum”
“Able to find, create, and analyze. You know, back in 2009, there were all these mortgage bonds that were out there”
“we're looking for more ill liquidity than we are looking for undervalued. But maybe those two things are are more similar than I'm giving it credit for”
“I would say I had this like huge sensitivity to running my own firm. I didn't want to do it”
How the episode opens
To Core Capital. A friend of mine said that it's Peter Teal's biggest investment in any fund outside Founders Fund.
So, I don't think Peter's ever said that to me directly, but I've heard that as well. It was really incredibly cool and really humbling. I got to know him over a long period of time.
I think that over time, he grew to trust me. We'd talk about ideas. We'd talk about lending.
And then one day, I was at his house and he said, "I want to be the biggest investor in your fund. And I was like, "Look, raising money is really hard for this. and he said, "Well, if I'm the only investor, if it's just you and me, that's just fine.
And that's how we started.
And why in the world would Peter Teal want to invest in a lending fund? — Carrie, you were introduced to me as the trader that Dan Loe called the best adjusted by age trader he's ever met. What does that even mean?
So, I think that it was 2009, 2008, and Dan Loe was trying to find structured credit talent to run a structure credit business for him. and he met people between the ages of 25 and 40 and you know I think that I probably wasn't the best person he met for the job but age adjusted I was and I think from his perspective his view at the time was that by the time I grew into their age I would be better than them
Obviously as you age you get better at a trader but there must be some advantages of being a younger trader what are they — At that time in that market of structured credit and mortgage back securities the age was my being young was a huge advancement for me I didn't have the scars of the financial crisis.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- illiquidity in credit
- forced sellers and mispricing
- asset creation vs asset finding
- scaling credit funds
- equity upside inside credit
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Tacora Capital
- Third Point
- AlphaSense
Watch the episode
Watch “How She Got Peter Thiel to Anchor Her First Fund (Without Pitching Him)” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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How I Invest With David Weisburd, this episode and its artwork belong to David Weisburd. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
