Umergence

Trust. Growth. Experience.

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About

Umergence is a premier broker dealer specializing in private placements and alternative investments. Our representatives focus on deal structure advisory, institutional capital placements, M&A advisory, early to late stage direct investments, and late-stage secondary opportunities.

Our back office systems use a proprietary data management systems that enable supervision, operational efficiency, and 24 hour access. Our goal is to provide stakeholders with the tools and information they need, allowing for smooth transactions from inception to closing.

Umergence was inspired by the word “Emergence”, which is a phenomenon of coming together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. When we come together in the deal making process, we strive to create the most value for our clients.

Our team is here to help clients navigate the opacity of alternative investing and private capital markets. Our goal is to offer solutions, not obstacles, and the wisdom of experience to get things done right.

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Our Team & Affiliates

Our world class team of seasoned professionals average more than 20 years in the industry and have collectively been involved with raising more than $75 billion of capital. We leverage a carefully cultivated network of domestic and international single/multi-family offices, high net worth individuals, private equity funds, pensions funds, endowment funds, sovereign wealth funds, institutional lenders and strategic investors.

Jacob Vandersteen

Jacob Vandersteen is an American entrepreneur and a Registered Representative of Umergence. He is most known for being the Founder & CEO of both the ad-tech company Mamusa AI and the financial industry consultancy, Wealthyer. His experience at the forefront of both the fields of finance and leading technology fuels his approach to supporting prominent companies and innovators in their achieving their capital raising or M&A ambitions.

Todd Glassman

Todd has 25+ years of operating, investing, and advisory experience, having spent his career building, growing, and optimizing businesses for institutional investors and family offices as well as independently as an entrepreneur. His vast expertise spans capital markets, private equity, strategy, finance, and operations.

Kathleen Durusoy

Kathleen Durusoy is an international venture capitalist and investor with a strong people and capital network across the United States and the Middle East. Durusoy is currently a founding director at Transition Fuel NG Acquisition Corporation, a Canadian company with a focus on acquiring natural gas assets in North America. Durusoy is responsible for bringing 100MM+ in investment to the team.

Bhavya Gupta

Bhavya is the Founder and Managing Partner of ACE Consultants, working on collaborative working relationships with Investors and clients globally. ACE Consultants works closely with companies getting them ready for capital raise, market expansion, cross border consulting with a special emphasis on Emerging markets. With a proven track-record in long-term business development and strategic solutions, Bhavya has an extensive network in India and Middle East.

Tom Gallagher

Tom Gallagher has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. He was a rates trader in NY for ten years prior to moving to Hong Kong to set up Citi's Fixed Income Prime Brokerage for Asia/Pac. He then spent four years in sales and trading for Citi's Securities Lending business in Asia. Currently, Tom and his partners in Asia and Australia are focused on raising capital for various projects both domestically and globally.

MelRose Wild

Mel focuses on raising capital for conscious sectors across the alternative investments landscape. Her interests include Impact, Permaculture, Water, Botanical Wellness, Women and BIPOC as well as female run and/or society benefiting VC. Mel raises for teams with strong track records, that pay attention to female inclusion, and are doing SDG positive work. Mel provides ESG metric reporting, problem solving, and female c-suite placement as a bonus to hiring her as an investor relations manager.

Keith Cronin

In 2019, Keith partnered with Connor Robertson to found Syntacz, a niche management and lead generation company that supports small and medium size businesses that need to generate new opportunities. Syntacz started to take off in August of 2020 after the pandemic shed over 90% of the business for the parent company. Through hard work and dedication, Syntacz went from $10k a month in revenue in August 2020 to 2021 fiscal generating $1.7 million in revenue.

Randall K. Rubin

Randall Rubin has a broad breadth of experience in finance that covers a journeyman’s career across innovation, fintech, emerging markets, real estate and entertainment. Prior to a career in investment banking, he was an award winning filmmaker, a quant strategist in volatility markets and a marketing and media consultant for top beverage brands Grey Goose Vodka and Jägermeister Liqueur.

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David Hirsch

David Hirsch is a serial entrepreneur. David graduated from Cornell University and immediately joined the family metal door business, Security Metal Products (SMP). David was into Real Estate development and private equity. Three very large single family estates were developed and sold valued at $14MM. Additionally, David and associates raised $5mm for a child’s juice company and took control of the company.

Prakash Chandak

Prakash is a seasoned financial professional with 25 years of expertise in cash, derivatives and structured finance from investing/ trading/ pricing & valuations, risk management/ hedging, and funding. He started his career at Barclays Capital, NY and after a couple of years, joining Goldman Sachs, and spent a little over a couple of decades there.

Shania Sharma

Shania Sharma is a student at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, where she is studying finance, international business, and media law and ethics. She is involved in numerous extracurricular activities, such as the Undergraduate Business Diversity Council and Ascend Pan-Asian Business Leaders. Through these involvements, her interest in the financial markets and understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of finance and media have significantly grown.

Tim Stoddart

Tim has 35+ years of experience in wholesale distribution of investments and private placements. He is the founder of Capital Investment Marketing and Investment Marketing, Inc., both wholesale distributors of investments. The group has wholesaled over $2.8 billion of investment contracts, structured investments, private placements, and other advisory services for asset managers, insurance companies, high-net-worth and global investors.

Edward Stephens

Ed brings a wealth of experience to our team. Prior to joining Expert Dojo, he was a principal at Triago, a global group founded in 1992 as one of the first private equity placement agents. Triago assists GPs and LPs with every aspect of their fundraising, secondary, and strategic development operations, regardless of investment focus or region. Triago was recently acquired by Houlihan Lokey.

Robert Carr

Mr. Carr has over 27 years of industry experience in institutional business development and consultant relations. Mr. Carr has worked in the traditional and private markets and has been successful in raising several billion dollars in assets.

Christopher Mullahy

Christopher is a Managing Director for Compass Advisor Intl. Chris has concentrated the majority of his career leading sales efforts in the Alternative Investment space for Hedge Funds and Private Equity and Real Assets. Chris has served both boutique investment managers and large multi-boutique structures like Natixis Investment Managers and BNYMellon Investment Management where he led distribution of Alternatives, Equities, and Fixed Income in the Endowment & Foundation Channel.

Azure Erickson

As head of Ignite Investments, Azure is responsible for the development and execution of Ignite’s strategic initiatives. Azure curates and manages investor deal flow, cultivates and maintains investor relationships, advocates alignment of interest between Ignite’s sponsors and investors, and directs equity distribution for the firm.

Nili Sangani

As Managing Principal, Nili serves as a senior advisor to Ignite where she plays an integral role in the development and oversight of Ignite’s strategic initiatives and capital raising activities. Nili is also an active member of the Board of Directors of Encore Enterprises and Encore Properties, Ltd. Over the course of her career, she has overseen and managed relationships with investors representing nearly $1.5 billion in equity.

Daisy Chen

Daisy Chen, CFA, is Executive Director, responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with Ignite Investments’ high net worth and international clients. Daisy has 20 years of experience in the securities, financial advising, and private equity industry. Since joining the firm in 2012, she has managed relationships with high-net-worth individuals representing more than $170 million in equity on behalf of Ignite and its sponsors.

Brenda Grogan

Brenda Grogan is responsible for developing and maintaining investor relationships for Ignite Investments. Brenda has more than 25 years of commercial real estate development, investments, and brokerage experience and has raised more than $195 million dollars in equity through Encore-sponsored products. Previously, Brenda was director of commercial real estate for Hudson & Marshall, exceeding $2 billion in transactions through sales and auctions.

Seth Roteman

Seth Roteman is responsible for developing and maintaining investor relationships with high net worth individuals representing over $75 million in equity across the U.S., with a regional focus on investors located throughout the northeast and southeast. He has more than 10 years of experience raising capital for real estate offerings across multiple asset classes.

David Seume

David Seume is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with RIAs, Family Offices and Institutional Investors. Prior to joining Ignite, David was a partner in a residential real-estate venture based in Kansas City. Previously, he was the national director at Cognios Capital, focused on raising assets for the firm's equity fund offerings.

Nami Nafissi

Nami is responsible for maintaining investor relationships and providing client support for Ignite Investments. He has more than six years of experience in real estate law. Previously, Nami was a case clerk at Clark Hill Strasburger (formerly Strasburger & Price LLP), working within the industry litigation practice group.

Nikita Sangani

Nikita Sangani, Executive Director, is responsible for building and managing relationships with Ignite Investment’s high net worth clients. Nikita has over 9 years of experience in the securities and private equity industries. She also leads a futures and options based trading fund. Nikita was previously an analyst and Goldman Sachs.

Kimberly Pine

Kimberly Pine serves as a Director at Ignite Investments, responsible for raising capital for private equity placements and fostering investor relationships with high-net-worth clients. She applies her financial expertise and industry knowledge to support the firm's strategic growth by connecting investors with tailored opportunities.

Dominick Pandolfo

Dominick Pandolfo is an Investment Director and Capital-Raising professional with a proven track record of securing capital for high-growth technology ventures. He has played a key role in deploying over $637M in capital, including $620M at Ligo Partners across 97 ventures resulting in 10 successful exits, and $17M at Catheon Capital.

Kevin Petersen

Kevin has 25+ years’ experience in financial services that began with a pre-IPO staffing industry startup. Following the IPO, he worked 20 years as a consultant for Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo, Black Rock, Barclays, and iShares

Lara McGillicuddy

Lara has 15+ years of experience in the financial industry and is currently an Investment Banker raising capital for funds and direct deals across multiple industries. Lara has worked with numerous family offices and venture capitalists worldwide and has built a very strong investor network.

Victor Park

A hedge fund industry and capital raising veteran, Mr. Park is the Principal and Founder of CapitalIntroductions.com. Capitalintroductions.com, and affiliated platforms FamilyOfficeDeals.com and CoInvestmentDeals.com. Collectively, the platforms comprise a tech enabled vertically integrated capital raising, media & marketing firm.

Vincent Kondaveeti, CFA

Vince has experience in institutional sales at a number of investment banks ranging from Bank of Americal Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and Nomura. He also has experience on the buy side as an analyst covering financials, airlines and call centers as well as a COO of a family office.

Steve Brennan

With over 30 years of experience in the financial industry, Steve has built a distinguished career on the buy side, working with firms such as Bear Stearns, Wells Fargo, and Janney Montgomery. Over the years, he has developed extensive client relationships, initially focusing on high-yield bonds and convertible securities before transitioning to equities.

McLloyd K. Jensen

McLloyd “Mac” Jensen is a proven and effective leader and producer having nearly 30 years of experience in investment finance. He has an unparalleled network, in the investment community not only locally but globally. Mac oversees investment sourcing and institutional outreach within Umergence.

Jeff Ciarcia

Prior to co-founding Umergence, Jeff has 15+ years of investment management and risk analytics experience. Previously, Jeff worked as an international equity and M&A portfolio manager for FNY Capital as well as with the commodities group of the Louis Dreyfus Company.

David Logan

Prior to co-founding Umergence, David served for over 10 years as an institutional director of technology and advisor on capital markets activity.

You?

We are looking for team members. Umergence is growing and we are seeking to expand our already amazing team. If you have your series 7 and are looking for a new home, we encourage you to join us! Connect with us.

Core Values

At Umergence, our driving force lies within the unwavering commitment to:

Trust

Fairness

Honor

Collaboration

Transparency

Innovation

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Services

Equity Capital Markets

Private placement and capital introductory services with global reach across a wide range of sectors. Although we maintain a focus on growth stage startups and institutional fund placement, we are always willing to consider new offerings based on their merits and circumstances.

Debt Capital Markets

Strategic debt capital introduction services for convertible notes, senior and non-senior debt facilities, mezzanine, bridge, lines of credit, and bespoke alternatives based on individual client needs.

Holistic Strategy

We work to bridge connections between GPs, LPs, independent sponsors and strategic capital partners across the entire capital stack. We offer services for primary fundraises, secondary transactions, private placements, as well as direct deals and co-investments.

Partners

The flow and velocity of money largely represents the circulation of energy throughout our society. We take this responsibility seriously and partner with trusted partners to help with distribution.

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Umergence Venture Studio

The Umergence Venture Studio is a network of retail investors, entrepreneurs, deal makers and executives. Our unique platform allows collaborative participation between retail investors and institutional capital.

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Contact

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