WestCap recruits Blackstone’s Michael Sotirhos for newly created IR role

WestCap, a growth equity shop led by ex-Blackstone and Airbnb CFO Laurence Tosi, hired Michael Sotirhos for the new role of head of capital formation and strategy.

Sotirhos joins from Blackstone, where he worked for 13 years, most recently as a senior managing director in the firm’s institutional client solutions group, helping to drive fundraising and business development across the private equity platform.

Prior to Blackstone, Sotirhos was a partner at Atlantic Pacific Capital, a placement agent.

WestCap’s hire reunites Sotirhos and Tosi, who were together at Blackstone and, before then, at Merrill Lynch. “We’ve known each other for almost 40 years,” Sotirhos told Buyouts. “And we first began working together professionally almost 30 years ago.”

In his new job, Sotirhos will lead WestCap’s investor relations team and co-investment process, with a focus on broadening the LP base and expanding into new markets in Europe, the Middle East and Australasia. The goal, he said, is to support continued globalization.

“As WestCap continues to grow globally as a team, we feel our investor relations capabilities need to grow as well,” he said. Achieving this will create “the best institutional engagement,” helping to “diversify our mix of investors,” including among LPs interested in co-investment opportunities.

WestCap also recently hired Simon Kinzett as a London-based managing director. Formerly with Permira, he will spearhead investor relations initiatives in new markets.

Sotirhos will also head new product development. This will involve working with portfolio companies to increase global distribution of products and services, in some cases with the assistance of investors. “Having a local partner on the investment side can be a great accelerant to that,” he said.

Tosi in 2019 launched the first traditional fund of the $5.8 billion WestCap to invest in technology-enabled, asset-light marketplaces. The strategy targets founder-led, category-leading businesses operating in experience tech, financial tech, healthcare tech, infrastructure tech and real estate tech sectors.

The New York and San Francisco manager closed the debut fund in 2020 at $824 million, according to Buyouts data, and two years later wrapped up a second vehicle at $2.25 billion.

WestCap is preparing to roll out a third fund in the second half of this year, sources told Buyouts. Sotirhos declined to comment, noting “we still have more than enough dry powder.”

Sotirhos was attracted to WestCap because of its “unique and differentiated” market role, he said. Its “operating equity” strategy promises “to add more than just capital” as a partner to entrepreneurs and their businesses.

This quality, combined with dry powder, positions the firm to “take advantage of the shake-out in the growth equity space,” he said.

Recent investments include Dragos, an industrial cybersecurity technology provider. Last fall, WestCap announced leading the company’s $74 million Series D financing extension, building on an initial $200 million raised for the round in 2021.

WestCap Strategic Operator Fund I, which is fully invested, was earning a 1.8x net multiple and a 28 percent net IRR as of September 2023, sources said.