Billy Libby
Co-Founder and CEO, Upper90. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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Libby leads Upper90, a hybrid investment firm that combines senior secured asset-backed credit facilities with equity to help technology founders scale with minimal dilution. Prior to co-founding Upper90, he was Head of Quantitative Execution and Market Making Sales at Goldman Sachs and has directed investments into companies such as Octane Lending and Thrasio.
1shows
1appearances
23statements
2resolved
1supported
1contradicted
50%fully supported
Everything Billy Libby said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Libby: Lower-cost ETF equivalents will disrupt traditional venture capital fee structures
“I think that that's going to come to the venture world too. It's been a momentum trade. And so if you're Sequoia or Forerunner or Bessemer, you have services and tools. I think it's going to be hard to prove that you should be getting two in 20 versus an ETF e…”
Libby: Non-lead venture capital firms offering generic operational help are redundant
“If you're not going to get one of the top VCs, you don't need five VCs that are all doing the same thing. Like, oh, we'll help you with talent, and we'll do this and that. 10 years ago that mattered, but now all those tools are available to the companies.”
Libby: Founders can multiply QSBS tax exemptions to $25M using trusts
“Well, you can set up five trusts. And get five times a QSPS exemption. And then upon exit, you can roll them into one entity. So just think about that. Like you have a five million dollar tax free gain or a twenty five million dollar tax free gain.”
Libby: Late-stage investors out-earning founders at exit will fundamentally change
“A private equity firm or a growth equity firm coming into a series C or D sitting at the top of the caps table with liquidity preferences and all these downside protections, and they're ultimately earning more than the founders at exit. To me, it seems like th…”
Libby: Venture capital industry has barely changed in twenty years
“It's a random walk, and I think that's helped us with Upper 90 because we came with fresh eyes into the VC world that hasn't changed that much in 20 years.”
Libby: True innovation is in tech, not finance, which relies on scale
“What happened is, if we're honest with ourselves, the real change is happening in the tech world. There's not much innovation happening in finance. It's really operational alpha and scale.”
Libby: Venture debt is just a tool to underwrite VC firms
“Venture debt is just a tool to underwrite the venture firms.”
Libby: Large lenders misprice binary regulatory risks on shared scooter fleets
“So we decided not to do it, but because there's a lot of capacity, a lot of these bigger lenders and banks do that stuff. But I think they're mispricing that Binary outcome that we can't really underwrite.”
Libby: Hybrid credit combining debt and equity will be investing's future
“And so our view is that this will be the future of investing where we can offer this kind of hybrid credit is what we call it because founders are going to want it.”
Libby: Non-Mega Mid-Tier Credit Funds Face a Competitive Disadvantage
“I actually think bigger credit funds that aren't the biggest are actually, in my opinion, a competitive disadvantage because they don't have the cheapest cash capital and they can't be nimble anymore.”
Libby: Finance professionals pretend to be risk-seeking but are actually risk-averse
“People in finance, we pretend that we're risk-on, but we're really risk-averse, and you need someone to help you build up the confidence to do that sometimes.”
Libby: Octane Lending achieves 10% excess spread versus 1% in subprime
“His cost of capital's high single digits. His book yields on excess spread is like 10 plus percent. Subprime auto has a one percent excess spread because it's well understood by banks.”
Libby: Upper90 refuses to provide debt without an equity stake
“So we will not invest in a business or provide debt, and we can't also be an equity partner.”
Libby: Founders Face 20% Dilution in Seed and Over 50% by Series B
“Founders right now face 20% dilution on average through the seed round and greater than 50% after the series B.”
Libby: US flared natural gas exceeds Africa and Japan's total energy use
“There's more natural gas that gets flared in the US every year than the amount of energy consumed in Africa and Japan.”
Libby: Upper90 Scaled Crusoe Energy Credit Facility to $40 Million
“So we ended up giving them a five million dollar project finance facility at 15%, and then it went to fifteen million. And we ended up scaling with them to forty million because it had nothing to do with being a crypto Bitcoin mining startup.”
Upper90 was first capital into Thrasio at $12M valuation
“Introduced us to Thrasio, which has been a marquee investment for us. We're the first capital in that company at a twelve million dollar valuation.”
Libby: GETCO executed more orders in a minute than Goldman did daily
“Just to give people a sense, GetGo traded more orders in a minute than all of Goldman's clients at the time in a day.”
Libby: Market makers lose trading against quant firms like D.E. Shaw
“When trading on the New York Stock Exchange, every client effectively gets charged the same price. So if you have D.E. Shaw, which if they're trading against you, they're usually winning. Like they know at this microsecond that something's mispriced, and if yo…”
Libby: Upper 90 syndicate built off-balance-sheet credit facility for FilmRise
“What ended up happening with FilmRise was we created, in partnership with some other groups, an off-balance sheet credit facility securitized by Netflix payments.”
Libby: Upper90 seeks businesses generating 25% to 30% annualized book yields
“So we're looking for businesses that have meaningfully more book yield, 25, 30% annualized book yield, so they can service our 12 to 14%.”
Upper 90 structures deals as 10-20% equity and 80-90% debt upfront
“We make that decision up front. 10 to 20% in equity, 80 to 90% in debt.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Billy's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Co-Founder and CEO, Upper90 | 1 | 23 | 50% 1/2 | full record on Capital Allocators → |