Firm Profiles
Upper90 Overview
Founded in 2018, Upper90 is a hybrid investment firm which uses data to offer tailored equity and debt to tech startups in the enterprise, e-commerce, and fintech space.
As a hybrid fund, Upper90 invests 90% credit and 10% equity in supply chain, commerce, fintech, and marketplace businesses.
Upper90 initially offers between $5MM to $25MM credit facilities which can scale to over $250MM for Seed to Series B stage startups. This is based on asset performance and not just equity raised.
The co-founders of Upper90 are Bebe Chueh, Irwin Gross, Jenny Just, Mark Gerson, and Paul Appelbaum. The headquarters of the firm is in East Meadow, NY.
Upper90 AUM
According to the most recent regulatory filings, Upper90 has $1 billion in assets under management as of March 28, 2023.
Upper90 Interview Process & Questions
Despite the changes in the interview changes for each candidate, the general nature of the process stays the same for the most part. In fact, you can anticipate the following:
- Interview rounds: 4-6
- Initial interviews are supervised by junior professionals, while later rounds are handled by more senior folks
- Unless it’s on-campus or on-cycle recruiting, expect that the entire process will last for multiple weeks
Get ready to answer a mixture of behavioral questions, technical questions, and fit questions when you interview at Upper90.
To help you with preparation, I’ve created a Growth Equity Interview Guide. Feel free to check it out.
Why Upper90
One of the questions you must prepare for is the “Why this firm” question.
If you’ve met employees at the firm during your networking efforts, make sure to mention them and how their experiences and testimonies helped in choosing their firm.
Also, do your homework and research the firm. You can try listening to interviews with its founders, management team, and investors to get to know them better.
For starters, check out this interview with Billy Libby, co-founder of Upper90:
More Interviews
- 45-minute webinar with participation of Dallin Rosdahl, Principal at Upper90)
- Billy Libby, CEO and Co-founder of Upper90, on financing early-stage startups
- Discussion with Billy Libby, CEO/Co-Founder at Upper90 and Conor Witt, Vice President at Upper90
Upper90 Case Study
Communication skills and technical knowledge are two traits that investment firms highly value. To evaluate these, firms like Upper90 ask candidates to perform case studies.
Most case studies will have you do financial modeling and investment recommendations. But for junior roles, a cold calling case study may also be part of the process.
Check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide if you need more help regarding case studies.
Upper90 Salary & Compensation
According to Glassdoor, analysts at Upper90 have median total pay of $82K, while there’s no recent data for associate hires. Actual figures may vary depending on several factors.
Analyst
Upper90 Careers, Jobs, & Internships
View open roles at Upper90 inside our job board where we also feature all open roles for similar firms.
Upper90 Portfolio & Investments
According to Crunchbase, Upper90 has made 20 investments and one acquisition. Some of their notable deals include Finley Technologies, SellerX, and Razor Group.
Notable Transaction: Gynger
Today, every company relies on software and infrastructure to keep their business running. In fact, the global software expenditure is expected to grow to $879 billion in 2023.
For those companies that want to use their capital wisely, it’s definitely a smart move to invest in software.
Gynger offers startups quick access to non-dilutive capital to fund their software purchases so they can get the best prices, pay on their own terms, and make their cash flow more optimized.
With the help of Gynger, companies can be underwritten in just a few minutes, make their vendors pay the following day, and manage all their software payments and contracts in one dashboard.
To this date, Gynger financed contracts from $1,000 to $1 MM for top platforms such as Airtable, Datadog, Slack, and many more.
In December 2022, Gynger secured $11.7 million in seed funding round and $10 million in debt financing.
Upper90, along with Vine Ventures, led the round with participation from Quiet Capital, Gradient Ventures, Deciens Capital, and Google’s AI-focused venture fund.
Next Steps
If you decide to send your application and build your investing career at Upper90, I would highly recommend that you check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide first before attending interviews.
Growth Equity Interview Guide helps professionals get a good grasp of topics that are typically covered during interviews such as financial modeling, case studies, and more. Check it out and start learning today!