Senior Associate - Venture & Growth (m/f/d)

Senior Associate - Venture & Growth (m/f/d)

Join the team rewriting the rules in private markets.

Moonfare delivers what few others can: the highly sought-after funds and hidden-gem investments that go beyond what most private banks offer. Every opportunity is subjected to a ruthless vetting process; the bar is unforgivingly high. The result? Institutional-quality portfolios for investors who demand more.

Our team combines finance veterans with talent from tech, consulting, law and industries you’d never expect. Headquartered in Berlin, we operate from eight offices across Europe, the US and Asia.

If you're ready to build what's next in private markets, let's talk.

Mission:

Turn Moonfare's access to the world's leading venture managers into a steady, well-underwritten flow of single-company investments our clients can actually buy.

About the role:

A significant share of Moonfare's AuM sits in venture and growth, and the direct side of it, co-investments and secondaries in VC-backed companies, is where the business is growing fastest. Right now that dealflow arrives faster than we can review it, which puts the deployment of our proprietary funds at risk and caps how far the direct platform can scale. The scope of this role begins the moment an opportunity reaches us and ends when the deal closes, so operations sits outside it, as does the client raise itself. Your first year is weighted towards screening, pipeline and diligence, with the sourcing and business development side building from there as your market view and relationships deepen. You will work alongside senior members of the team rather than alone, and what moves forward is decided together.

The team:

Venture & Growth sits inside Moonfare's Investment team and runs two connected things. One is a multi-manager vehicle making primary fund investments into leading VC and growth managers across the US and Europe, where we have historically backed Founders Fund, a16z, Accel, Lightspeed, Khosla and General Catalyst. The other is the direct programme of co-investments and secondaries that those manager relationships generate, which is where this role's centre of gravity sits. You will report to the Head of VC & Direct Investing and work daily with the commercial team, who depend on you for qualified dealflow, and alongside Legal and Operations to close deals and launch the SPVs we distribute on the platform.

You will:

• Own the direct deal pipeline. Everything from the moment an opportunity reaches us through to close is yours to run, so nothing sits unscreened and no access window quietly closes while we are still deciding.
• Screen inbound co-investments and secondaries, and bring a view to the team. You run the first pass on what reaches us and form a position on it. What progresses is decided together with the Head of VC & Direct Investing and the wider team, so the value of your screen lies in the quality of the argument you bring to that conversation and in how sharply you separate the two or three worth our time from the rest.
• Run diligence on direct deals. The core of it is judgement on the business itself: how good the company is, how strong the founding team is, how large and how contested the market is, and whether the thesis survives contact with the evidence. The technical layer sits underneath, with cap table analysis, preference stacks and waterfalls, and pricing and NAV work on secondary positions, so we know exactly what we are buying and at what price. You will do this with support from senior members of the team, and contribute to primary fund diligence alongside the direct mandate.
• Author the investment memos that go to IC. The committee decides on what you put in front of it, so a memo with a gap in it, an inaccuracy, or a risk nobody spotted becomes a decision made on the wrong basis.
• Build the market view, and then the market position. Relationships with intermediaries, GPs and, over time, founders are what get us into constrained opportunities and keep us current on where secondaries are pricing. This part of the role grows as you do, and watching how competitors structure and go to market belongs to it, because that is what keeps us competitive on price.
• Help make the process repeatable. You will refine how we diligence direct deals and contribute to the sourcing, screening and monitoring tooling behind it, including AI-enabled approaches, so the volume we can handle is not capped by how much a person can read.
• Turn deals into something our clients can buy. The commercial team depends on this seat for qualified dealflow and for support packaging opportunities into investor-ready materials. Fund deployment runs at the pace this work sets.

The next Moonfarian:

• Four or more years centred on venture and growth investing. That comes along one of two paths. Either direct investment expertise, sourcing and diligencing investments in technology companies at a venture capital, growth equity or crossover fund, or an allocator seat focused on VC and growth where you have underwritten co-investments hands-on. Directly relevant adjacent backgrounds include TMT and technology investment banking, tech-focused private equity or software buyout, corporate development or corporate VC at a technology company, and consulting with a tech or commercial diligence focus. What matters most is a demonstrable track record of hands-on deal work: screening opportunities, running diligence, and taking a view through to a decision.
• A network in venture you can already use. This one is non-negotiable. Relationships with GPs, intermediaries such as placement agents and bankers, and other LPs and co-investors, enough to get us access to constrained opportunities, support diligence and track spin-out candidates. You do not need the network of someone twice your experience. You do need a real one, and you will build a much larger one here.
• Investment judgement you can defend. You form a view on a company and argue it, including the case against. You can read a business and a founding team, size a market and test a thesis against what the evidence actually supports. You are genuinely fluent in emerging technology and can develop conviction on themes and business models, with AI front of mind but not the only lens. You assess attractiveness quickly on limited or imperfect information, you are comfortable with financial modelling and market analysis, and you know your way around cap tables, preference stacks and waterfalls, secondary pricing, VC term sheets and SPV mechanics. You can hold several live opportunities at once and prioritise sharply between them.
• An entrepreneurial instinct, which matters here as much as the investing. This one is non-negotiable too. This is a builder's seat as much as an investor's. You want a hand in structuring, go-to-market, process design and the operational scaffolding of a business line that is still being built. Your AI fluency goes past using the tools to designing processes around them.
• Communication that works in three different rooms, and relationships that outlast any one deal. You can pitch and tailor to an investment committee, to a commercial team, and to clients, and prepare the reports and presentations each of them needs. Just as important is what you build over time with GPs and intermediaries, the standing that makes them think of us when something scarce comes up, because that is what turns a contact list into access. Excellent written and spoken English is essential.

How the role is measured:

• Deals sourced, screened, and taken through to IC.
• Timely deployment of Moonfare's proprietary funds, such as the Moonfare Technology Fund.
• Allocation secured with GPs and intermediaries, meaning access we would not otherwise have had.
• Whether IC can decide on your memos without rework, and whether risks surface in diligence rather than after close.
• Capital raised on direct deals and the performance ultimately generated. These are programme outcomes you contribute to rather than own alone, and they are read that way.

What success looks like:

By six months, the deal pipeline runs without the Head of VC & Direct Investing having to chase it. Opportunities are screened as they arrive, you are bringing a formed view on each one to the team, and the queue is visible to everyone who needs it.|

By twelve months, deal review is fully operationalised, with a process the team can run rather than one person's habits, and more than ten direct deals have been through IC.

This role is unlikely to be a good match if you

• Prefer to let relationships develop slowly and mostly in writing. Much of our access comes from conversations with managers and intermediaries you do not know yet, and someone reserved about starting them will find the sourcing half of this job hard going.
• Want a defined process to work inside. A good part of what this role runs does not exist yet, and you would be designing it while live deals are moving.
• Want sole authority over what you invest in. We discuss deals as a team and decide together what progresses, which means your view gets argued with before it gets acted on. If you want to run your own book without that, this will frustrate you.

What your growth could look like:

The next step from here is Associate Principal. Getting there means leading the majority of diligence processes rather than running them with support, and having a network that generates opportunities rather than one that keeps you informed.

What you get here that you would not get at a fund: you join the Head of VC & Direct Investing in GP conversations from early on and inherit access to a built-up base of manager relationships. You see the commercial side of raising capital for a deal alongside the investment side, which most investors never touch. And you help build a wider business, across a discretionary fund, capital raising for individual deals and, in time, a secondary market.

If you feel you do not meet all of the requirements, we still encourage you to apply!

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in Berlin/London. This is a hybrid role with office attendance required 4 days/week.

Please note that we do not accept applications sent by email. You should submit your application directly through our careers website.

Invest in Yourself:

• Ownership and Impact: You are empowered to bring ideas, make decisions, and see your work directly contribute to Moonfare's success.
• Transparent Environment: We believe in open communication. You will receive regular updates on company strategy, performance against our KPIs, and key business decisions.
• Personal Growth: We support your development with an individual growth budget of €1,500 or 2% of your base salary (whichever is higher).
• Invest in Your Future: We support your long-term financial goals with a company pension scheme, providing a 20% employer contribution.
• Relax and Recharge: You start with 25 vacation days and you’ll receive one additional day for each year of tenure, up to a maximum of 30 days. Moonfare gifts two days during our annual end of year company shutdown.
• Daily Lunch: Enjoy a free lunch every day that you are in the Berlin office, with a weekly changing menu that includes salads, curries, pastas, and a variety of vegan and vegetarian options.
• Subsidised Public Transport: We support your commute with a monthly subsidy for the Deutschland job ticket, making your travel easier and more affordable.
• Fitness and Wellbeing: Stay active with a subsidised Urban Sports Club membership, giving you flexible access to a wide variety of sports and wellness activities across Germany.
• A Culture of Excellence: Join a team of ambitious, smart, and committed professionals who are passionate about revolutionising private market investing.
• Performance Reward: As a performance-first company, we reward strong performance twice a year, so your impact translates directly into how your pay grows - through potential base salary increases and/or bonuses.

Our Values:

• Our clients come first, Moonfare comes second, and we prioritise ourselves third - Client-Centric Focus. Putting clients first means creating value for them is essential. Placing Moonfare second signifies that our individual professional future at Moonfare depends on the company's commercial success. Prioritising ourselves third reflects our humility in putting clients and Moonfare before personal interests.
• We pursue excellence and honor our promises - Commitment to Excellence. We hold ourselves to the highest standards, taking responsibility for our failures, and celebrating our successes. We commit to deadlines and stick to them and we learn from our mistakes.
• We are here to win and to celebrate our collective achievements - Win together. We are mission-focused and think and act like owners. We exemplify the attitude we expect and each of us commits to do what it takes to succeed.
• We foster personal growth but each of us earns our place as a Moonfarian through merit - Growth and Merit. We hire, retain, and develop exceptional people and invest in empowering them to excel. We must all earn our place at the table every day.

We understand the important role that diversity plays in our success. Different backgrounds, experiences and ideas push us further and raise the bar. We’re committed to developing an inclusive and safe culture where everyone - regardless of colour, race, religion, sex, origin, sexuality, disability, marital status, citizenship or gender identity - knows that they are an integral part of the team and can bring their full potential to their work.

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