The Circle IPO's strangest winner

Axios

4 days ago

Oak Investment Partners is one of the biggest winners from the IPO of stablecoin issuer Circle, with shares worth in excess of $3 billion.
It has a convicted crook to thank. Except that he might be dead.
Catch up quick: Oak first backed Circle in 2014, as part of a $17 million Series B round. Overall, it appears to have invested less than $30 million — which means the current value more than repays the $2.5 billion fund out of which it invested.
Zoom in: Oak's deal lead was Iftikar Ahmed, a general partner who'd come to the Connecticut-based firm more than a decade earlier after stints with Goldman Sachs and Fidelity.
One year later, Ahmed was charged by the SEC with insider trading after being tipped off about a potential merger.
But the big bombshell came soon after when Oak learned that Ahmed was robbing the firm itself — via a scheme whereby he directed Oak investments into accounts that he controlled.
He also convinced his partners to invest in a company without disclosing that he already had a personal stake in the business.
Oak fired Ahmed, who ultimately would face federal fraud and state embezzlement charges.
Behind the scenes: Ahmed fled the country, even though the feds were in possession of his passport, leaving behind his wife and three kids.
Eventually came word that Ahmed had been detained in India and was allegedly unable to return to the U.S., where he was nonetheless convicted.
His wife, Shalini, who also had been a Goldman Sachs banker, has continued fighting in court to recover some of the family's frozen assets.
In a brief filed last month, Shalini claims that she and the government were notified in January of Ifty's passing, and received a copy of the death certificate.
She adds: "The government has questioned the validity of the certificate. Shalini understands there is an ongoing investigation."
Zoom out: Oak would never raise another fund, with the Ahmed saga having wrecked LP confidence, although some of its partners would successfully launch a new firm called Oak HC/FT.
Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire declined to discuss how he was first introduced to Ahmed, with a company spokesperson citing IPO quiet period restrictions.
The bottom line: Ifty Ahmed was a very good venture capitalist, albeit a corrupt one.
In addition to Circle, his deals include Airespace (acquired by Cisco), GMarket (acquired by eBay), and Kayak (acquired by Priceline).
What's always been confounding is why someone so wealthy would risk it all for just a bit more, particularly if he believed in the startups he was backing. The Circle deal ultimately might have paid him hundreds of millions of dollars.
Now we'll never know. Maybe.