Chase Coleman - The Tiger Cub Who Bridged Two Worlds

The Next-Generation Investor Who Revolutionized Growth Capital

1. The Turning Point in Growth Investing

The conference room on the 45th floor of Manhattan's Midtown tower felt electric with possibility. It was 2007, and Chase Coleman sat across from a young entrepreneur named Mark Zuckerberg, studying the metrics behind a social networking site that most institutional investors still dismissed as a college fad. While traditional hedge fund managers focused on established public companies, Coleman saw something different: the convergence of private innovation and public market potential.

What happened next would define not just Coleman's career, but reshape how Wall Street thinks about growth investing. Tiger Global Management's early bet on Facebook—spanning both private funding rounds and public market positions—generated returns that transformed a $25 million startup fund into a multi-billion dollar investment empire. More importantly, it established the blueprint for a new kind of investing that would blur the lines between venture capital and hedge fund management.

That moment crystallized Coleman's unique insight: the most explosive growth opportunities existed in the gap between private innovation and public recognition. While his peers remained locked in their silos, Coleman was building bridges.

2. Early Life and Influences

Charles Payson "Chase" Coleman III was born on June 1, 1975, in Glen Head, Long Island, into what Business Insider would later describe as "old money" with the potential to make "new money." His lineage reads like a who's who of American establishment: his grandfather, Charles Payson Coleman, served as managing partner of the prestigious New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, while his grandmother was married to a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam.

His father, C. Payson Coleman Jr., became a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, continuing the family's legal tradition, while his mother Kim Coleman built her own interior design firm. The family maintained the understated elegance typical of old Long Island money—wealth that preferred influence to ostentation.

Following family tradition, Coleman attended Deerfield Academy before enrolling at Williams College, where he graduated in 1997 and co-captained the lacrosse team. Williams, known for producing Wall Street titans, proved the perfect launching pad for Coleman's financial career. But unlike many of his privileged peers who coasted on connections, Coleman possessed an analytical intensity that set him apart.

His true education began through a childhood friendship that would change everything. Coleman had grown up close to Spencer Robertson, son of the legendary hedge fund manager Julian Robertson. This relationship provided Coleman with front-row access to one of the most successful investment minds of the era—an opportunity he would soon transform into the foundation of his own empire.

3. The Rise of Tiger Global

Fresh from Williams College in 1997, Coleman joined Julian Robertson's Tiger Management as a technology analyst. The timing couldn't have been more educational. Robertson, known for his contrarian approach and willingness to challenge market consensus, was navigating the treacherous waters of the late 1990s dot-com boom.

Coleman had a front-row seat to one of the most spectacular hedge fund closures in history. Robertson, who had accumulated $22 billion in assets at Tiger Management's peak, famously shorted high-flying tech stocks he believed were overvalued during the dot-com boom. The premise was correct, but timing proved fatal. After two years of devastating losses, investors withdrew funds en masse, forcing Robertson to close the fund in 2000.

Rather than marking the end of an era, Robertson's closure became the beginning of a new one. In 2000, Robertson entrusted Coleman with over $25 million to manage, making him one of the 30 or more "Tiger Cubs"—fund managers who launched their careers from Tiger Management's ashes. "I've known Chase since he was a young boy on Long Island and a good friend of my son Spencer," Robertson stated.

In 2001, Coleman established Tiger Technology (later renamed Tiger Global Management) as a hedge fund focused on public equity markets. At just 25 years old, Coleman faced the daunting task of proving himself worthy of Robertson's faith while operating in the wreckage of the tech bubble collapse.

Despite launching during what the firm later acknowledged was "not exactly a great time to launch a technology-oriented hedge fund," Tiger Global achieved early success "with the bulk of the profits from shorts and solid stock selection on the long side." The firm credited its early success partly to embracing three Chinese internet companies in late 2002: Sina Corp., Sohu.com, and NetEase, dubbed the "Yahoos of China," all of which appreciated by several multiples by mid-2003.

4. Shaping a New Investment Paradigm

The eureka moment came when "the Tiger Global team realized that many of the companies they were excited about were private." While traditional hedge funds focused exclusively on public markets and venture capitalists stayed in the private realm, Coleman saw an unprecedented opportunity to bridge both worlds.

In 2003, Scott Shleifer helped Tiger Global expand into private equity markets. The firm's first formal private fund launched that year with $76 million in assets—an emerging-market-focused fund that delivered a spectacular 58% net return.

Coleman's defining insight crystallized during Tiger Global's early Facebook investment. The hedge fund became an early investor in Facebook, accumulating approximately a 2% stake, while also investing 3% in LinkedIn. This wasn't traditional venture investing—Coleman was applying hedge fund-style analysis to private companies, then maintaining positions as they went public.

By 2006, Tiger Global was raising $1 billion for its fourth private fund, backing Chinese companies like Longtop Financial Technologies, Latin American travel agency Despegar, and Russian email service Mail.ru. The firm's fifth fund, which closed in 2008, delivered a 44% net return.

The Facebook investment exemplified Coleman's revolutionary approach. Rather than choosing between private or public markets, Tiger Global invested across a company's entire lifecycle—from private funding rounds through public market growth. This "crossover" strategy allowed Coleman to compound returns in ways traditional investors couldn't match.

From 2007 to 2017, according to the Preqin Venture Report, Tiger Global raised the highest amount of capital among venture capital firms. Coleman had essentially created a new asset class.

5. Navigating Challenges and Setbacks

Success breeds complexity, and Coleman's revolutionary approach eventually encountered harsh market realities. The first major test came during the 2008 financial crisis, but Tiger Global's diversified strategy across geographies and stages provided resilience that purely public or private strategies lacked.

The more severe reckoning arrived in 2021-2022. Tiger Global's aggressive expansion reached a fever pitch when the firm backed 315 startups in 2021 alone—essentially a startup a day. In March 2022, Tiger Global raised $12.7 billion for a new fund, with 900 investors participating.

By June 2022, disaster struck. The firm's hedge fund and long-only fund declined 52% and 62% respectively since the beginning of the year, eliminating approximately two-thirds of their lifetime gains. Tiger's hedge fund lost nearly 60% in 2022, making it one of the worst-performing hedge funds on Wall Street.

Coleman later acknowledged to investors, "If you feel like it's been a bit of a walk through the desert, so do we," referring to the dearth of IPOs and market conditions. He admitted wishing Tiger Global had "invested a bit less" during the 2021-2022 period.

The firm faced additional challenges beyond market losses. Internal tensions emerged, with key personnel departures including private equity head Scott Shleifer transitioning to an advisory role and partner John Curtius leaving to start his own fund. A controversial memo circulated in 2022 containing unsubstantiated allegations against the firm, while reports surfaced of a $10 million settlement with a former female employee.

6. Lasting Impact and Industry Influence

Despite recent setbacks, Coleman's fundamental innovation—bridging private and public growth investing—has permanently altered the investment landscape. In 2024, Tiger Global rebounded with 24% returns tied to rising technology stocks, though the firm remains focused on recouping recent losses.

Over two decades, Tiger Global has invested in hundreds of businesses across more than 30 countries, with over 90 portfolio company IPOs. In 2020, Tiger Global earned its investors $10.4 billion, more than any other hedge fund according to LCH Investments' annual rankings.

The firm recently achieved a major win with its Flipkart investment, generating $3.5 billion in profit when it sold its stake to Walmart after leading 15 funding rounds. Coleman noted that Kalyan Krishnamurthy, formerly a Tiger Global employee, now serves as Flipkart's CEO—illustrating the firm's ecosystem approach to value creation.

Today, Tiger Global operates with over 20 years of experience spanning hundreds of investments, building a platform that seamlessly integrates public equity strategies with private growth investing. As of 2025, Coleman ranks #581 on Forbes' billionaire list with a $6 billion net worth, while Tiger Global manages approximately $46 billion in assets.

7. Lessons for Investors: The Trader's Playbook

1. Embrace Cross-Stage Investing: Coleman proved that the highest returns often exist in the gaps between traditional asset classes. Don't limit yourself to public or private—find companies worth following across their entire growth journey.

2. Focus on Fundamental Innovation: Coleman's strategy emphasized "catching the next big wave, not riding the ripples." Identify technological or business model innovations before they become obvious to consensus investors.

3. Build Global Perspective: Tiger Global's success stemmed partly from recognizing that innovation happens worldwide. Coleman's early wins in Chinese internet companies demonstrated the value of global opportunity scanning.

4. Scale with Conviction: When Coleman identified winning themes—like social networking or e-commerce—Tiger Global invested aggressively across multiple companies and stages rather than making token bets.

5. Learn from Failure: The firm openly acknowledged missing investments like Alibaba and selling winners like Facebook too early. Coleman's transparency about mistakes enabled continuous strategy refinement.

8. Your Journey Starts Now

Chase Coleman's path from privileged Long Island lacrosse captain to billionaire investor illustrates a fundamental truth: the biggest opportunities emerge when established boundaries begin to blur. His success bridging hedge fund rigor with venture capital intuition created an entirely new category of growth investing.

Coleman's story reminds us that the most transformative insights often come from asking simple questions others won't: Why choose between public and private? Why limit geographic scope? Why accept traditional category definitions?

At 49, Coleman represents a relatively young generation of wealth creators who understood early that technology would reshape every aspect of business and investing. His approach—combining analytical discipline, global perspective, and stage-agnostic thinking—offers a blueprint for navigating an increasingly complex investment landscape.

The next time you encounter artificial boundaries in your own investing approach, remember Coleman's willingness to build bridges where others saw walls. Sometimes the greatest opportunities exist not within established categories, but in the spaces between them.