Zal Bilimoria has been a solo general partner since 2018, and has no plans to stop. He credits his former colleague, David Lee, with whom he started Refactor Capital in 2016, for the decision.
He said he wouldn’t have been able to found the Burlingame-based company without Lee, the former Google executive who ran Ron Conway’s SV Angel seed fund for several years. Together, they raised a seed round of $50 million. When Lee decided to retire in 2018, he wanted Bilimoria to stay with him rebuild As a solo general practitioner.
Being a solo GP means having full authority to make investment decisions on your own while also having full responsibility for things like fundraising. Although this level of freedom may seem great, it also means that there are no acquisition partners to consult with, who are pushing back and making VCs scrutinize investment decisions in ways they may not have thought of. While angel investors do this, they spend their own money. A sole investor invests on behalf of limited partners who they trust will grow their money.
“He convinced me to go solo, and this was at a time when solo GPs were not in vogue,” Bilimoria told TechCrunch. “He told me that since I liked my independence and power and loved spending time with the founders, I should stay on my own. I was very nervous, but the more time I spent thinking about it and talking to others, the more I realized that this would be what I wanted to do, and I didn’t look at Backwards I will be working as a solo GP for the rest of my career, if I can help it.
Bilimoria is not without its own unique lineage. Prior to joining Refactor, Bilimoria spent nearly three years as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he helped launch the firm’s $200 million Bio Fund. Before joining a16z, Bilimoria spent a decade building technology products at tech giants, including Google, Netflix, LinkedIn, and Microsoft. He was also the founder of consumer mobile startup Sniply.
Through Refactor, he invests in companies “solving the biggest challenges facing society,” he said. In fact, the term “refactor” comes from computer science and refers to making code more efficient.
And being a solo GP hasn’t slowed down the bilimuria one bit. He continued to raise three additional funds and has now closed a fourth fund with $50 million in capital commitments to invest in biotech, climate and hard technology startups.
Since its launch in 2016, Refactor has invested in more than 100 companies, four of which have become unicorns, including Solugen, which uses synthetic biology to take hydrocarbons out of the chemicals industry, and Astranis, which makes small satellites.
Last week, Solugin A Loan worth $214 million From the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office to build the next Solugen Bioforge project in Minnesota that will make chemicals from corn sugar instead of oil. Awarded to a small number of startups, Department of Energy He obtained a similar loan for Tesla in 2010.
Bilimoria was able to raise the new funds in less than 90 days, he said. Ninety percent of the funding was raised by existing limited partners, including firms such as Knollwood Investment Advisory. The majority of the limited companies are institutional investors, and the entire group of limited companies are US investors.
“I feel very lucky to have this LP collection,” he said. “I’ve been chasing one institutional investor for the last four funds, and I finally got them on board with this fund, so they’re part of my new 10%.”
Bilimoria is winding down investments from Fund III, but has already committed some capital from Fund IV.
This new fund will continue to lead pre-seed and seed investments in startups working in areas including new battery technologies, cancer treatments, IVF developments and chemicals. Billimoria said check sizes typically range between $1 million and $2 million, and will be divided between 20 and 25 companies over the next three years.