Prolific fintech investor and QED Buyers co-founder Frank Rotman stated Friday that he’ll transition to a companion emeritus function by 12 months’s finish to give attention to founding his personal startups.
However these startups received’t essentially be monetary expertise firms. In a post on X, Rotman — who helped begin QED in 2007 — declared that “the primary enterprise” that he plans “on getting out of the bottom is within the music trade.”
He wrote: “It’s simple to name me loopy for all the apparent causes, nevertheless it’s value reserving judgment till you be taught extra in regards to the enterprise that’s developed in my head and sat on the shelf for years. It is going to be enjoyable to construct and will really make an enormous distinction to an trade that none of us may think about residing with out.”
Rotman began Alexandria, Virginia-based QED, which in the present day has $4 billion in property underneath administration, almost twenty years in the past with Nigel Morris and Caribou Honig. He led the agency’s funding in Credit score Karma and performed a task in QED’s investments in unicorns similar to GreenSky, Flywire, and SoFi. (Actually, QED was the primary institutional cash into Credit score Karma.) Different firms that the agency has backed embrace Creditas, Nubank, AvidXchange, and Bitso.
QED solely invests in firms constructing monetary expertise on the pre-seed to Sequence A phases.
Rotman, who goes by the deal with “The Fintech Junkie” on X, stated he’ll transition to his new function on January 1, 2026. He’ll proceed to serve in a part-time advisory function to QED over the approaching years.
Apart from founding music startups, Rotman stated he seemingly plans to put in writing a ebook centered round his “observations and frameworks for the startup and VC worlds.”
He wrote within the X put up: “This shouldn’t shock anybody who is aware of me – writing is my oxygen. I can’t think about a life with out it though ChatGPT and Claude are higher writers than I’m.”
In a press release, QED Managing Accomplice Nigel Morris famous that he and Rotman had labored collectively for over 30 years — beforehand additionally at Capital One.
“Frank, at his core, is an entrepreneur and I’ve little question he’ll excel in his subsequent chapter,” he stated.
QED Buyers’ companion Amias Gerety can be promoted to guide QED’s U.S. funding workforce.