3i Member Spotlight

Andrew Sachs built a private equity firm on a contrarian idea: the best businesses are meant to be owned, not sold. He is the founder and managing partner of Mauloa and one of the earliest members of 3i. Over a career spanning roughly 50 investments since the late 1990s, Sachs has built what he calls the “anti-PE firm,” designed to avoid the heavy leverage, forced exits, and dependence on multiple expansion that characterize much of the industry. The name Mauloa comes from the Hawaiian word for “endless.”

In conversation with 3i Members Co-Founder and Chairman Mark Gerson, Andrew traces his path from an eleven-month stint at Morgan Stanley Capital Partners to launching a fund with his cousin at twenty-three, and the hard-won lessons that shaped his approach.

Throughout the episode, Andrew shares:

• Why cash flow is king: how Charlie Munger’s maxim and his own read on maintenance capex led him to reject EBITDA-driven valuations in favor of durable operating cash flow
• How he underwrites people: the simple question about books and continuous learning he uses to judge whether a leader is truly trying to improve
• The discipline of never having a bad meeting: why showing up, taking notes, and staying present have compounded into opportunities over a decade
• Where private equity is heading: why he’s wary of a market built on multiple expansion, churn, and PE-to-PE selling, as well as what “endless” ownership looks like instead

Learn more about 3i Members at 3imembers.com and follow us on LinkedIn for updates.

Andrew Sachs at Mauloa

Our latest Member Spotlight podcast features Alex Fine, Founder and CEO of Fun (fun.xyz), the payments company building the deposit and withdrawal rails behind platforms such as Polymarket, Aave, and Lighter. Fun moves more than $18 billion annually for users in over 100 countries, following a recent $72 million Series A led by Multicoin Capital and SignalFire.

In conversation with 3i Members Co-Founder and Chairman Mark Gerson, Alex traces his path from a Bay Area kid who idolized startup founders the way other kids idolized rappers or sports stars to building the infrastructure that quietly moves billions on-chain. He entered Stanford already planning to drop out and now focuses on solving one of crypto's biggest challenges: making blockchain payments reliable at scale.

In this episode, Alex shares:

• The investor playbook: how first-principles thinking shapes his approach to building a business and his conversations with investors
• The $100,000 black hole: how a $400,000 transfer lost $100,000 in conversion and why solving that problem is at the core of what Fun does
• Why "good enough" isn't: why "move fast and break things" is the one startup mantra Fun can't afford to follow
• Where blockchain growth is heading: why 98% of Fun's business is already outside the U.S. and why Alex sees trillions moving on-chain

00:00 Welcome and introduction
01:27 The first company, built in middle school
03:22 Stanford, and deciding to leave
04:23 Who should go to college now
06:27 The problem: money sent into a black hole
07:14 Why value moves from databases to blockchains
09:01 What databases cannot do
11:37 A $400,000 transfer that arrived as $300,000
14:09 Mistake-proof rails, and why the biggest orders get the worst price
15:50 Why Fun stays invisible to the consumer
16:35 Why early startups have no moat
19:55 Talent density
21:13 Perfectionism, six nines, and Henry Ford
24:10 Rejecting work-life balance
25:29 The top priority: pull-based fiat rails
26:42 When the world hears about Fun
27:55 Ten years out
29:39 Reflecting on 3i

Our latest Member Spotlight podcast features David Blumberg, Founder, and Bruce Taragin, Managing Director of Blumberg Capital, a seed-stage venture firm with nearly three decades of investing together and early bets on Nutanix, Braze, and DoubleVerify.

In conversation with 3i Members Co-Founder and Chairman Mark Gerson, David and Bruce unpack what it takes to build an enduring venture partnership, how they evaluate startups through their "Six Ts" framework, and why holding conviction when everyone else wants to sell is what separates good returns from great ones. They also share how agentic AI is already delivering measurable productivity gains and where Blumberg is placing its next bets.

In this episode, David and Bruce share:

Our latest Member Spotlight podcast features Mark Edelstein, Chief Executive Officer of Auramet. His career spans global commodities markets, entrepreneurship, and investing. After immigrating to the U.S. from South Africa in the 1980s, he spent 15 years in commodities before co-founding Auramet in 2004, building the business into a global precious metals trading platform.

In conversation with 3i Members Co-Founder & Chairman Mark Gerson, Mark reflects on his experience across commodities markets. He discusses how global metals markets function, how he approaches risk and volatility, and the discipline required to navigate cycles over time.

In this episode, Mark shares:

Learn more about 3i Members at 3imembers.com and follow us on LinkedIn for updates.

Our latest Member Spotlight podcast features Lisa Morris, Founder of Road Concierge and Managing Director of AKS Family Partners. Her career spans Broadway, entrepreneurship, and investing. After touring internationally as a performer, she identified a gap in entertainment travel and built Road Concierge from the ground up, bootstrapping the company without outside capital and selling it in 2012.

In conversation with 3i Members Co-Founder & Chairman Mark Gerson, Lisa reflects on her progression from performer to operator to investor. She discusses her work with family offices and impact-focused capital, along with the framework she uses to evaluate opportunities and guide her philanthropic efforts.

In this episode, Lisa shares:

• How Lisa built and sold Road Concierge and the concrete lessons it taught her about managing cash, negotiating leverage, and choosing the right moment to exit

• A clear, repeatable framework you can use to evaluate investments and allocate capital

• Practical lessons from Broadway on resilience, preparation, and adaptability that apply directly to investing

Learn more about 3i Members at 3imembers.com and follow us on LinkedIn for updates.

Dan Novaes is the Founder & CEO of Mode Mobile, an earning-technology company that has facilitated nearly $1B in earnings and savings to users through everyday smartphone activity. A lifelong entrepreneur, Dan began identifying arbitrage opportunities at an early age and went on to build multiple profitable consumer businesses before graduating high school.

Prior to Mode Mobile, Dan founded and scaled top-grossing App Store products, raised venture capital with backing from Mark Cuban, and built consumer platforms reaching tens of millions of users globally. Today, Mode Mobile has just under 200M MAU users across 170+ countries, generated tens of millions in annual revenue, and built one of the largest user-shareholder communities in the world through innovative crowdfunding and Reg A financing.

He has been a 3i Member since 2024.

Listen to the episode to hear:

Learn more about 3i Members at 3imembers.com and follow us on LinkedIn for updates.

Greg Friedman is the Founder and CEO of Peachtree Group, a real-estate investment firm focused on acquisitions, development, and lending across commercial real estate with a strong hospitality footprint. Since launching Peachtree in 2007, Greg has overseen more than $11 billion in real-estate investments and built one of the country’s most active private-credit and loan-acquisition platforms. He has been a 3i Member since 2024. 

Listen to the episode to hear:

• How Greg launched Peachtree on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis and turned it into an advantage
• The firm’s philosophy of identifying “mispriced risk” and moving faster than banks
• Peachtree’s expansion into film financing, tax-credit strategies, and other adjacent ventures

Learn more about 3i Members at 3imembers.com and follow us on LinkedIn for updates.

Mitch Caplan brings over 30 years of experience leading innovation across the financial‑services industry. He co-founded Telebanc, the first branchless bank in the U.S., and scaled it from $50 M to $5 B in assets before striking a $1.8 B sale to E‑Trade that was negotiated and announced in just nine days. The deal formally closed the following January. He then served as CEO of E‑Trade, cutting $1 B in costs, and building one of the first fully integrated online financial platforms. 

Caplan later served as CEO of Jefferson National, where he launched a tech‑enabled, low‑cost tax‑deferred investment platform that was ultimately acquired by Nationwide. Today, he is President of Tarsadia, a $2 B+ investment firm where he oversees strategy and investments across fintech, healthcare, technology, and real estate. Most recently, he was named interim CEO of Yieldstreet, where he also serves as Chairman of the Board. Mitch has been a 3i Member since 2023. 

In this episode: 
• How Mitch built the first branchless bank, and why it worked when regulators said it wouldn't 
• The story behind the $1.8 B E‑Trade deal, and how it was negotiated and announced in just nine days 
• Why most fintechs fail, and what Mitch looks for in companies built to last 

Learn more about 3i Members at 3imembers.com and follow us on LinkedIn for updates.

Benji Shomair is an entrepreneurial operator and investor who spent over a decade at Facebook (now Meta), where he built and scaled multiple billion-dollar global businesses across ads, messaging, and commerce. Most recently, he served as VP of Commerce Business at Meta, leading the commerce experiences team and shaping how billions of users engage with shopping on Facebook and Instagram.

Benji has had a front-row seat to the evolution of digital platforms— scaling Facebook’s ads business globally, turning messaging into a powerful sales engine, and helping brands adapt to a content-driven commerce world. Benji has been a 3i Member since 2024.

In this episode, hear about:
• How “following the customer” helped inform the development of new products and business at Facebook (now Meta) 
• How messaging became the go-to sales channel for SMBs globally
• Why content is the new storefront—and what brands must do to stay relevant

What do BlackBerry, Swiffer, Impossible Burger, Sonos, and Febreze have in common? They were all named by one man—David Placek, founder of Lexicon Branding, the agency behind more than 100 iconic brand names. Fast Company calls Lexicon “the most envied branding agency in the world.”

A 3i Member since 2024, David has spent decades naming companies—from Silicon Valley startups to global giants like Apple and Coca-Cola—craft the language that defines their brands. He also lectures on creativity at Stanford GSB and UC Berkeley Haas, advises startups, and runs River Lane Vineyard in Sonoma.

In this episode, David sits down with Mark Gerson to reveal the surprising stories behind some of the world’s most recognizable names—and why the best ideas often come from unexpected places. He explains:

• How Lexicon’s three-team system helps spark creativity through controlled chaos

• The strategy behind names like Impossible, PowerBook, and Dasani

• Why the sound of a name matters just as much as its meaning

• How risk, discomfort, and even polarization signal a name that has real power

• What entrepreneurs often get wrong when naming their company or product