“Once you hit a billion dollars, you should probably consider some sort of internal team. Just to mitigate risk. There’s audit risk involved when you have such a small number of people managing a huge pool of capital. It’s going to differ for everyone. That’s probably a good benchmark.” — Trish Spurlin
Trish Spurlin is the Investment Director at Babson’s $800M endowment, covering private markets investing with a large focus on venture. In fact 70% of their private equity portfolio is venture capital. Quite a unique strategy for an endowment to take. Why? An endowment is required to provide, in this case, the university money every single year, anywhere from 5% to 60% of a university’s annual budget. And to invest in an illiquid asset class aka venture capital that doesn’t return capital till a decade later, if not longer, takes courage.
You can find Trish on her socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trishspurlin/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/trishdigi
OUTLINE:
[00:00] Intro
[01:45] Sports in Trish's life
[05:10] How does success fuel inhibit ambition? How does it inhibit ambition?
[07:35] How do you underwrite long term motivation?
[13:21] How fast you order something might matter
[16:04] Can Trish angel invest outside of Babson?
[17:08] Endowment with a $80M budget
[19:54] Should you hire an outsourced CIO?
[24:18] Endowment with a $8B budget
[27:47] Babson's liquidity requirements
[30:33] How to ask about a senior partner leaving
[34:05] How does Trish build trust with her GPs?
[37:48] Trish's interests vs Babson's interests
[45:24] Hank sauce
[47:26] Why is Ocean City Boardwalk special?
[48:51] What serves as a reminder to Trish we're still in the good ol' days?
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