LA Venture Podcast: Why Rivonia Road Capital Focuses on 'Venture Credit'

On this week's episode of LA Venture, hear from Dan Zinn, co-founder and managing partner at Rivonia Road Capital. The firm provides a much more bespoke solution than traditional venture debt. We also talk about how Zinn built a billion-dollar hedge fund and small business lender XPRS Capital.

Key Takeaways:

• Zinn distinguishes that Rivonia Road invests in "venture credit" — a phrase that hasn't yet been coined — as opposed to venture debt. That is, they bridge the capital gap for venture-backed firms that have cash flows, royalty streams and/or other tangible objects.
• Rivonia works with companies at all levels of development, but they're particularly interested in early-stage companies that originate their assets online.
• Rivonia offers free advice because the firm is in the business of helping business and wants to support founders -- especially in understanding the capital market — which Zinn says most founders don't understand.
• Zinn's investment decisions have always focused on where the capital is not going— for instance: China, alternative U.S. credit markets or small business -- and then exploring them.
• Rivonia focuses on sub-hundred-million investments.

"This is all a journey and you better enjoy it and...do some interesting things along the way because...ultimately there's no destination that I know of that is necessarily satisfying." — Dan Zinn

Dan Zinn is cofounder and managing partner at Rivonia Road Capital. He was formerly a founder and chair at XPRS Capital and founding partner, portfolio manager at Orange Capital.

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