Kerem Ozmen knows that success can be achieved without following the traditional path—the one that says success is dependent on spending the early years studying and then working toward a career. Young entrepreneurs like Ozmen are proving that isn’t always the case.
Kerem Ozmen is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of 8090 Partners, a private partnership of industry-leading families and entrepreneurs focused on direct investments and other opportunistic transactions. Ozmen found success at a young age as a venture capitalist. At 25, he was the founding partner and sole managing director of K50 Ventures, a VC fund that gained national recognition for Ozmen’s role in raising a full fund, sourcing over 4,000 global opportunities, and investing in leading seed-stage startups from around the world.
Kerem Ozmen’s notable accomplishments at such a young age can be attributed to his early experience managing his family’s investments. The Ozmen’s put significant focus on building the local entrepreneurial community in Reno, Nevada, dedicating capital to building the Ozmen Entrepreneurship Center at the University of Nevada, Reno.
“I worked closely to build out the Center, helped put the programs in place, participated in local pitch events, and more,” Kerem Ozmen said. “Then I started the first institutional venture fund in Reno, Ozmen Ventures, to invest in both local founders and other opportunistic companies.”
After building a local community and making a handful of investments, Kerem Ozmen secured an internship at Kairos, a venture capital firm based in New York. Within a few months, he became a junior partner at their VC fund. Ozmen’s rise earned him more responsibilities. Within his first year, he was tasked with creating and leading their first early-stage venture fund called K50. The young professional raised the capital, built the team, sourced and selected the deals, and hosted a global summit event atop the World Trade Center to showcase the companies.
With K50, Kerem Ozmen helped several young founders jumpstart their own companies, helping them create materials, find the right hires, strategize, and raise capital. “This was a very influential point in the founders’ lives where I was fortunate enough to have played a small role in their successes, both personally and professionally,” Ozmen said. As he met more large family office investors in New York, Ozmen grew inspired to follow his own path. Eventually, he left his role at Kairos and K50 to build his own investment firm, 8090 Partners.
Since setting out to build his brand, Kerem Ozmen has daily found himself handling increasingly larger responsibilities. Today, he manages the institutional firm and works with industry-leading family offices worldwide, helping them plan for multi-generational wealth and maintain successful family offices.
“I had noticed a statistic stating that nearly 70% of high-net-worth families lose their wealth by the 2nd or 3rd generation; so, I knew that there was a very big problem that needed to be addressed,” Ozmen said. “I saw that guiding the focus of those influential families to more impact-oriented and successful investments could collectively make an exponentially larger impact than I ever could alone.”
Furthering the success that 8090 Partners has already achieved, Kerem Ozmen intends to grow his firm to an even larger scale, moving billions of dollars in capital to the best investment opportunities, ones that can create high financial returns while having a positive impact on the world. “Today we have investment initiatives around clean energy, and we have a philanthropic donor-advised fund to help families donate to the most appropriate organizations that align with their values.“
Learn more about Kerem Ozmen by connecting with him through LinkedIn and following him on Instagram.
