Glenn Youngkin's private sector return: VC edition
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Photo Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is returning to the the dealmaking world, months after exiting the public sphere.
Driving the news: Youngkin is joining venture studio Red Cell Partners as a partner, chairman and board member, he tells Axios exclusively.
- Youngkin stepped down as Carlyle co-CEO in 2020 to run for governor,
Zoom in: Youngkin, who considered running for president in 2024, is expected to have a broad swath of responsibilities.
- He will help with LP relationships, government relations, and business partnership relationships. Youngkin notes that Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and Amazon announced investments in Virginia during his gubernatorial administration.
- Youngkin sees similarities between Red Cell's current trajectory, and his his experience with Carlyle's growth. He joined Carlyle in 1995, some eight years after its founding. "When I joined Carlyle, Carlyle was not a big firm and was growing rapidly," he says.
The big picture: Youngkin has previously said that he has no plans to run for president in 2028, and this step back into the private sector is a sign that he hasn't changed his mind.
- The Red Cell role is expected to take up 1-2 days a week, says Youngkin — which I point out leaves him five days a week to other projects.
- But he tells Axios: "The bottom line is, I don't have a team. I'm not organizing a big campaign. I am really focused on on some of these commitments that I've made."
Red Cell invests in defense, healthcare, and cyber. It's named after the CIA's post 9/11 Red Cell unit, which evaluated potential national security threats from a non-traditional point of view.
- It's in the process of raising a second fund. Red Cell's first fund raised $91.2 million, and Axios has learned the new fund has already surpassed that total.
It also has a separate $150 million in a holding company that it uses to incubate companies, a source says. Part of the funding in the holding company has already been deployed.
- Its investments include Trase, an AI operating system which shares a CEO with Red Cell, and Claros, a startup minimizing energy waste at data centers.
