“Double or nothing.”

At Tandem, if we don’t double an investor’s capital, we don’t take any carry.

It’s that simple. 

Venture capital is a high-reward, higher-risk asset class. Because of the risk, we don’t believe we have done our job if we haven’t doubled our investors’ money. 

Unfortunately, some investments inevitably won’t perform as anticipated, and we always want to do right by investors. Our way of doing that is, if we cannot double an investor’s capital, then it’s not something we should be taking any type of performance fee on.

Our guiding principle is being transparent and accountable to our investors. It’s uncommon for venture firms to self-impose hurdles, let alone a 2x hurdle, but we want to work with our investors for the next 10, 20, 30 years. We’ll set high standards of excellence in exchange for trusted, long-term, and loyal relationships with our investors. 

Tandem investments are big swings. The first question we ask ourselves when we make an investment is–can we more than double this investment? When we invest, we have a high conviction it can double the capital invested.