Coleman is one of the so-called “tiger cubs” ~ 30 protégés of the genius speculator and Tiger Corp founder Julian Robertson. Robertsons “tiger cubs” are currently said to manage 50 of the world’s top hedge funds. The original “tiger” Robertson, now 88-years old, had once operated with over $20 billion as the worlds second largest hedge fund.

India’s food-tech major Zomato raking in $102.5 million (Rs 760 crore) investment this week from Tiger Global Management, in its latest Series J funding round, brought the little-known US hedge fund and investment firm once again into the news.

Not as globally known as Warren Buffet or George Soros, young Tiger Global Management founder Charles “Chase” Coleman III has still left significant imprint on many well-known startups.

He was early investor in Facebook and Linkedin. Zomato has joined the New York-based Tiger Global’s expanding investment den in India.

This includes collective investment of about $2 billion in Ola, Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Quickr.

Earlier this July, Tiger Global invested $190.9 million in the Bengalurubased online learning platform Vedantu. Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal had credited Tiger Global Management for putting Indian startups on radar of major global investors.

Tiger Global’s investment in Zomato follows “Chase” Coleman’s signature high paying, high-risk strategy ~ bet big on promising tech firms just before their initial public offering (IPO), drive up stock prices, then sell during a bull run and rake in big money.

Financial analysts estimate Coleman had made more than $1 billion from Facebook, $3 billion from Flipkart, $5 billion on Chinese e-commerce company JD.com Inc. He flopped with troubled electronic cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc, Chinese firm Longtop Financial that was accused of fraudulent IPO filings in 2007 and Russian Internet firm Yandex NV.

Coleman’s latest target Zomato plans to launch its IPO in the first half of 2021, according to founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal. Zomato will likely add to “Chase” Coleman’s net worth of nearly $7 billion.

Not much is known of the reclusive 45-year old “Chase” Coleman III. Married to Stephanie Ercklentz, the billionaire couple live in a $36- million mansion in New York. He and Tiger Global rarely or never interact with the media. Five years ago, Tiger Global Management had led the investor rush into India’s online retail and transformed e-commerce in the country.

Tiger Global serially invested over $900 million in Flipkart, heavily backed other startups like Quickr ($150 million). It invested $400 million in Ola Cabs, $85 million in courier service “Delhivery”. Coleman was then sixth in a Forbes list of the world’s 40 highest-paid hedge fund managers. Last year, Coleman became the youngest financier on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 2019.

He ranks among the world’s top 100 billionaires. Coleman III has unusual financial pedigree. He is descendant of Peter Stuyvesant (1612-1672), the last Dutch Governor of New York and the man who built the wall after which Wall Street is named. Coleman’s Tiger Global Management with $42 billion investment assets had less distinguished origins, in the billions-to-bust Tiger Corp. Coleman is one of the socalled “tiger cubs” ~ 30 protégés of the “genius” speculator and Tiger Corp founder Julian Robertson.

Robertson’s “tiger cubs” are currently said to manage 50 of the world’s top hedge funds. The original “tiger” Robertson, now 88-years old, had once operated with over $20 billion as the world’s second-largest hedge fund. More than a tiger, Robertson was better known as the “Wolf of Wall Street”.

His adventures and misadventures were chronicled in a brilliant Business Week cover story “Fall of the Wizard” in 1996. He shut down Tiger Corp four years later. Coleman started his career with Robertson’s hedge fund in 1997.

Robertson had known Coleman for years as his son’s childhood friend.

When Robertson shut shop in 2000, he gave Coleman a $25-million fund to manage. Coleman founded Tiger Global Management in 2001, and it has since helped feed some infant e-commerce “babies” in India to being probable global giants or gigantic failures.

“Coleman invests in these things when they’re already at a couple hundred million in revenue,” an insider told Forbes financial market analyst Daniel Fisher.

“He’s not a venture capitalist guy, but he’s helped create valuations of these companies at the pre-IPO stage.”

The original tiger Robertson continues to serve as one of the two advisory board members of Tiger Global Management, along with its Hong Kong-based managing director Pengfei Wang. Robertson’s presence serves reminder to his “tiger cub” Coleman ~ from billions to bust takes a few intenselyresearched but wrong bets in the mercurial “casinos” of stock exchanges – originally meant for honest dividends than billionaire speculators and crooked manipulators.