People and Company News, Week of May 23, 2025
- Jessica Duran has been promoted to COO by TSG Consumer Partners, a private equity firm focused on the consumer sector. Duran will continue to serve as CFO, a role she has held since joining the firm in 2017. Duran is based in San Francisco. She has been an integral part of TSG Consumer for more than 16 years, initially advising the firm starting in 2009 before officially joining the team. Prior to TSG Consumer, Duran was a leader in the private equity practice serving west coast clients at Deloitte LLP.
- Olivier Blechner was added as a managing director in the turnaround & restructuring services (TRS) practice of Portage Point Partners, LLC, an advisory, consulting, interim management and financial services firm focused on the middle market. Olivier has held senior leadership roles, including CRO, acting CEO, chairman and liquidation agent in a receivership and CIO specializing in global distressed investments. Prior to Portage Point, Olivier was the Managing Member of Turicum Capital.
- Michelle Youshock has joined World Insurance Associates LLC as head of personal lines, replacing Jim Hickey who is taking over carrier consolidation efforts for World. In this role, Youshock will continue to guide the roughly $150M business towards 10% sustained growth. Most recently, she held key leadership roles at Assured Partners, including Regional Director for Personal Lines/Small Commercial and Regional Sales Leader for Personal Lines. Youshock serves as Finance Committee Chair for the Leadership Academy of Nevada.
- Ailyn Fun joined Altamont Capital Partners, a private equity firm, as director and head of investor relations. Fun brings over 15 years of experience in private capital fundraising and LP relations. Prior to joining Altamont, Ailyn led investor relations at Altaris and was on the investor relations team at Marathon Asset Management. Previously, Ailyn worked in the Fixed Income and Credit Sales divisions at J.P. Morgan and Lehman Brothers.
- Keyur Desai has been appointed chief data and analytics officer of Cetera, a newly created role reporting to Christian Mitchell, chief solutions officer. Desai will lead the firm’s enterprise data strategy, advancing Cetera’s capabilities in analytics, AI, and advisor intelligence across its integrated ecosystem. Desai previously served as chief data officer at organizations including TD Ameritrade.
- Nick Castilleja has joined Clearwater Living, a real estate and property management company focused on senior living communities, as regional director of operations. Castilleja will be responsible for strategic planning, financial performance and quality assurance for the company’s independent living, assisted living and memory support communities in Texas and Oregon. He began his career in senior living with Horizon Bay in 2009 and has since held a variety of leadership roles, including the management of multi-state portfolios encompassing up to 21 communities. Most recently, he served as vice president of operations at Integral Senior Living.
- Jenna Lyons, fashion designer, entrepreneur, and television personality, has joined The Cashmere Fund, an evergreen interval fund focused on early-stage venture capital investments, as an investor and partner with the Fund’s subadvisor, Cashmere LLC. Lyons will advise portfolio companies on branding, consumer positioning and creative strategy. Lyons is best known for her tenure at J.Crew, where she rose from assistant designer to President and Executive Creative Director.
- Mauldin & Jenkins, an assurance, tax, consulting, and advisory services provider, and Greenville-based CPA firm Bradshaw, Gordon & Clinkscales have merged. The deal adds seven partners and 42 professionals to Mauldin & Jenkins and rebrands BGC’s office under the Mauldin & Jenkins banner. BGC provides audit, tax and business-advisory services. BGC clients will gain access to Mauldin & Jenkins’ wider industry expertise across sectors such as agribusiness, government, banking, tech and healthcare, plus a larger professional network built since the firm’s 1918 founding.
- Groww, one of India’s largest online brokerages, will acquire wealth management platform Fisdom for $150M in cash. The deal adds Fisdom’s one-million-plus customers and suite of mutual funds, stock trading, bonds, portfolio management and tax-filing services to Groww. Founded in 2015, Fisdom is backed by Prosus, Saama Capital and Quona Capital and runs 15 offices nationwide. The purchase comes as the Bengaluru-based firm prepares a confidential draft red herring prospectus, targeting an IPO that could value it at $7B to $8B.
- Regeneron Pharmaceuticals will acquire key assets of bankrupt DNA-testing company 23andMe—including its Personal Genome Service, health-research units and a biobank holding millions of customers’ genetic samples—for $256M, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal, slated to close in Q3 2025, ensures 23andMe’s consumer testing will continue but sparks fresh privacy worries as Regeneron gains control of an unparalleled trove of human genetic data. Regeneron says it will honor existing 23andMe privacy policies, comply with all laws and brief a court-appointed ombudsman on its data-security measures.
- Bluespring Wealth Partners, an acquirer of independent RIAs and hybrid wealth management firms, announced the launch of ClariVise Private Wealth on its platform. Previously operating under the oXYGen Financial brand, co-founders Brandon Hayes, Eric Pucciarelli, and Cristina Briboneria have been affiliated with Bluespring Wealth Partners and operating on the Kestra Financial platform for several years. With the support of Bluespring, they are now starting a new business in ClariVise that will continue to operate on the same Kestra Financial platform, requiring no change of BD, RIA custodian or fees.
- Leader Bank announced a partnership with DepositLink, a digital payment platform for the real estate industry. This collaboration was made in tandem with the launch of Leader Bank’s real estate brokerage banking team. Leader Bank’s partnership with DepositLink helps strengthen the suite of banking and cash management solutions available to Leader Bank’s broker-owners and real estate agent partners. DepositLink allows real estate brokerages, agents, and escrow holders to request time-sensitive payments digitally from homebuyers, in minutes.
- StepStone Group, a global private markets solutions provider, announced the opening of the new Ireland office at One Haddington Buildings, Dublin 4, of its subsidiary StepStone Group Europe Alternative Investment Limited (“SGEAIL”). SGEAIL oversees €29.1 billion in AUM as of December 31, 2024, a significant increase from €20.6 billion in December 2022.
- Simon Quick Advisors, a wealth manager and multi-family office, announced the expansion of its Texas footprint. Leading the Dallas team are Shei Unger, Nate Ohlinger and Ryan Moffett, who each join as managing director, client advisor.
- Eagle Merchant Partners has closed its second fund, Eagle Merchant Partners Fund II, with $415M in capital commitments. The fund was oversubscribed and closed above its original hard cap in seven months, attracting strong support from institutional investors, family offices, high net worth individuals, and members of Eagle’s team. Fund II continues Eagle’s strategy of making control investments in founder-owned companies across the Southeastern United States, with a focus on the franchise, multi-unit and commercial services sectors.
- Redpoint Ventures has raised $650M for its 10th early-stage fund, according to a regulatory filing. The fund size is consistent with the firm’s previous early-stage fund raised nearly three years ago.The early-stage strategy at Redpoint is led by Alex Bard, Satish Dharmaraj, Annie Kadavy, and Erica Brescia, who joined the firm in 2021. Recent investments by this team include AI coding startup Poolside, distributed SQL database developer Cockroach Labs, and procurement platform Levelpath. Redpoint also manages a growth-stage fund, which raised US$740 million for its fifth fund last year.
- Trinity Capital Inc., an alternative asset manager, announced the commitment of $15M in growth capital to Lendflow, a software development company that provides embedded credit infrastructure to fintechs, lenders, and vertical software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Headquartered in Austin, TX, Lendflow enables platforms to efficiently integrate lending experiences into their platforms with scalable, low-code solutions. This growth capital will be used to fuel Lendflow’s expansion of key product initiatives and accelerate its mission of democratizing access to credit.
- Riot Platforms, Inc., a leader in vertically integrated Bitcoin mining, has upsized its existing $100M credit facility to a total commitment of up to $200M with Coinbase Credit, Inc. (“Coinbase”), a subsidiary of Coinbase Global, Inc. The amount borrowed under the Upsized Credit Facility will be secured by a portion of the Company’s total bitcoin holdings.
- North Hudson Resource Partners LP, a Houston-based energy investment firm, has closed its fifth non-operated oil and gas fund, North Hudson Production Partners V LP at it $344M hard cap, inclusive of the general partner’s commitment. This closing brings the firm’s total assets under management to $1.4B. The fund will target a broad range of non-operated acquisitions in the U.S. and Canada, ranging from $1M to over $150M. Transactions are expected to include drilling partnerships with operators, joint-bid acquisitions with both public and private companies, as well as acquisitions of AFEs, acreage, minerals and PDP assets.
