Caerus Ventures - what happened?

Whatever happened to Caerus Ventures? There was an announcement in September 2022 of intent to raise a USD 100m fund, of which USD 50m would have been seeded by the Near Foundation.

A quick search of Nathan Pillai (Nathan Timon Conrad Pillai) shows some suspect things about Caerus:

  1. Nathan Pillai incorporated Caerus Web3 Limited (UK company number: 14273476) on 3rd August 2022
  2. Nathan is the only director of Caerus Web3 (likely the GP company) with 1 share issued

Certificate of Incorp:
14273476_newinc_2022-08-03.pdf (285.0 KB)

Point 1) is suspect given the timing of the GP set up and announcement at NEARCON of the foundation’s intent to seed the fund with USD 50m. It very much seems like Nathan Pillai of SailGP was tapped on the shoulder by the foundation without the foundation’s consideration for how credible he is as a GP to raise real third party LP money.

Point 2) is also suspect for a first time manager, as presumably the share capital base should be large enough to accommodate ESOPs and other co-founders if required. Given the intent to seed the fund with USD 50m, a 2% p.a. management would have adequately provided USD 1m of management fees per year for the GP. This would have been enough to support multiple hires and other co-founders. Moreover, a USD 100m fund would definitely not be manageable for just one individual.

Questions:

  1. Why did the foundation choose to back someone with no real experience in investing and managing a fund?
  2. Could it be a possibility that Nathan had no real intent to raise the incremental USD 50m of LP money, and instead reap the annual management fees?

All the above info is available from UK Companies House: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/

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