Peter Ackerson has departed from his role as general partner at fintech-focused firm Fin Capital and started a new company, Older capital.
According to his LinkedIn profileAckerson – who participated Finnish capital in August 2019 — retired from that company in January of this year. While his profile shows he became a general partner of Audere Capital in February 2023, it appears he only updated his online presence this week to reflect his new position. There isn’t much public information about Audere other than it’s listed under the “Financial Services” category on LinkedIn and its tagline reads “championing American innovation through early-stage technology investments.”
A source familiar with internal goings-on at Fin Capital claims there was tension between Ackerson and managing partner and founder Logan Allin surrounding the alternative finance start-up portfolio company Pipe – an investment that Ackerson led and on whose board he sat. The exact circumstances surrounding his departure are unclear.
For a while, Pipe was quite lively, catapulting to a valuation of $2 billion on the premise that it helped SaaS companies generate non-dilutive cash with a model that provided upfront capital for recurring revenue.
But last November, Pipe announced that it was his three co-founders step down from their executive positions and that a search for a new, “experienced” CEO had begun.
Shortly after that announcement, several sources who wished to remain anonymous — including an investor who says he stopped investing in the startup in its early years — told TechCrunch that they “heard” Pipe. had made approximately $80 million in loans to one or more crypto mining companies. The outfit or outfits have since gone bankrupt and the $80 million is believed to have been fully written off, these individuals said. Pipe denied the allegations and Luke Voiles was named the new CEO in February. Fin Capital (at the time called Fin VC) ran Pipe’s $60 million financing in June 2020.
When asked if the management shake-up and alleged previous circumstances at Pipe had anything to do with Ackerson’s departure, Allin replied told TechCrunch in an emailed statement:
Peter was integral to Fin Capital’s early growth and we greatly appreciate his contributions. Peter left the company to pursue other opportunities and remains a close friend and ally of the company. With regard to Pipe, our team is working closely with Luke Voiles, who is a great CEO and has our full support as the team focuses on the company’s next growth phase.
Ackerson declined to comment on the record.
According to LinkedIn, Maggie Sprenger joined his new firm, Audere Capital, in April. Both she and Ackerson are Kaufmann Fellows, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Founded in 2018, Fin Capital invests in the B2B fintech sector with a focus on enterprise SaaS in the United States and Europe. According to Crunchbase, it has more than $1 billion in assets under management. Fin was an investor in SoFi, backing the likes of Figure, Hummingbird, and Elevate.
At Fin Capital, which appears to have been his first VC role, Ackerson served on the boards of companies such as Maxwell, Teampay, Pipe, SamCart and Ternary. He was previously CFO of SymphonyAI and served on the board of directors of numerous other companies.
Prior to SymphonyAI, Ackerson worked at McKinsey & Co. in the fast-growing technology practice; with Wells Fargo in the global technology equity research group, including working on Facebook, ServiceNow, Marin Software and Groupon IPOs; and with Merrill Lynch in the technology investment banking group.
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