Ken Smythe is the Founder of Next Round Capital and leads the firm’s efforts across the institutional private markets and capital raising space. He has over 20 years of venture and finance experience and has transacted in over 50+ venture-backed companies across SaaS, Fintech, Consumer, and Biotech. He also has an extensive track record investing in early-stage companies across sectors, including DraftKings, Peloton, and SOFI.

He began his career as an analyst at Neuberger Berman and later became President of a $5bln hedge fund, a private equity firm headquartered in London. Before founding Next Round Capital Partners, Ken was a Managing Director at Artist Capital, leading the Private Shares group.

He is a frequent media contributor, including Bloomberg, TechCrunch, The New York Times, Forbes, and TheStreet.com. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Florida and has completed the Value Investing Program at Columbia University.

Wyan Yarbrough has over ten years of institutional investment experience at leading firms, including BlackRock, T. Rowe Price, and Artisan Partners. In these roles, Mr. Yarbrough led the investment of billions in capital across the Public and Private TMT landscape. While at BlackRock, Mr. Yarbrough served as the Head of Technology for BlackRock’s Growth Investment Strategies. In this role, Mr. Yarbrough utilized a deep-fundamental research approach focused on identifying the bottlenecks related to unlocking value from critical secular themes, such as the Cloud, the slowing of Moore’s Law, the Data Economy, and the AI infrastructure build-out. Focusing on wholistic frameworks has led to a consistent track record in identifying and investing in these revolutionary events, with investments ranging from silicon and hyperscalers to infrastructure software and applications. In this role, Mr. Yarbrough advised on more than $50bln+ in assets under management. Mr. Yarbrough played key roles in identifying and leading private investments in C3.ai, Genesys, Snyk, Dragos, PsiQuantum, SambaNova, and others.

Before BlackRock, Wyan served as a TMT Investment Research Associate at T. Rowe Price, where he catalyzed early investments in high-growth and disruptive technology companies, including private investments in Uber, Flipkart, and Magic Leap. Mr. Yarbrough started his career as an M&A Investment Banker at KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Wyan earned his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of California Davis, and is an active CFA Charterholder.

Before joining Next Round Capital Partners, Phil worked for RHK Noble Capital as an institutional equity private shares advisor. He has extensive experience working with leading institutional investors and companies to facilitate liquidity for shareholders. He has extensive relationships with Hedge funds, PE firms, and family offices in the US and globally.

Prior to entering the world of institutional equities, Phil spent 20 years in operational and managerial roles for several leading consumer goods companies (both public and privately held companies).

Phil received a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University. In his free time, Phil likes to ski and mountain bike with his family. He holds the Series 7, 63, and 79 licenses.

Mike currently serves as a Capital Markets Associate at Next Round Capital. In his role, he spearheads the firm’s endeavors in identifying venture capital-backed companies actively seeking liquidity. He actively engages with prominent institutional investors seeking to transact in private share transactions.

He comes to Next Round with a background in Fintech, having led sales and business development at Vise, a technology-powered asset manager backed by Sequoia. His focus was increasing assets under management across the Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) and Wealth Manager channels. Before his tenure at Vise, Mike made significant contributions at Meridian, a provider of equipment leasing solutions.

Mike holds an Accounting Degree from the College of the Holy Cross. Mike enjoys running, golfing, and reading books on personal finance and investing during his free time.