Nader Motamedy is the Founder and a Managing Partner of the venture capital firm Safar Partners. His daughter, Parinaz Motamedy, is also a Partner with the company.
Safar Partners is the third investment firm Nader has founded and managed. Parinaz, an experienced investment analyst, first joined the team in 2019 after graduating Harvard. She then gained a few years’ experience in the field prior to her current position.
Serial Venture Capital Firm Founder Nader Motamedy
Nader is a Managing Partner and a member of Safar Partners’ Investment Committee. He initially founded the company in 2019.
Prior to Safar Partners, Nader was CEO, Chairman, and Senior Founding Partner of New York-based Caspian Private Equity. He founded the firm in 2008 and remained until 2018, leading the investment team and managing the firm’s direction. Caspian Private Equity later merged with Euro Private Equity and Eagle Asia Partners to create private investment company Flexstone Partners.
Nader also co-founded corporate investment advising company Caspian Capital Management, LLC in 1997. He remained with the firm as a member of the Board of Managers until 2012.
Nader earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University. He holds an MBA from Boston College. Nader began his career at financial services company Morgan Stanley in 1985. He went on to work for Prudential Securities and CDC Investment Management Corporation before founding Caspian Capital Management.
As president of the nonprofit Boston Children’s Fund, Nader also engages in philanthropy..
Parinaz Motamedy joins Safar Partners
Parinaz Motamedy joined Safar as a Partner after Nader co-founded the company in 2019. She earned her A.B. in Philosophy and Psychology from Harvard University in 2015. During this time, Parinaz first interned with New York law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. She soon moved on to work with various venture capital, private equity, and investment firms, starting with Goode Partners.
After graduating, Parinaz was an analyst for The Blackstone Group. She also worked as an investor for AccorHotel’s corporate venture team for two years before joining Safar.
Safar Partners works with Harvard, MIT startups
Safar invests in startups originating in leading universities, especially Harvard, MIT, and the University of Rochester. Experts and scholars from these institutions comprise the firm’s board. Safar especially focuses on seed-to-growth stage venture fund investing in life sciences, artificial intelligence, information technology, cleantech, and advanced materials.
Among Safar’s portfolio startups is the clinical-stage Aramis Biosciences, Inc. This bio-pharmaceutical company is specifically researching a new treatment for dry eye disease. In January 2022, the FDA cleared their Investigational New Drug application for a Phase II proof of concept clinical trial.
In late 2021, Safar-backed transparent solar technology company Ubiquitous Energy closed their $30 million Series B Funding Round. A group of scientists from MIT and MSU first founded the startup in 2011. Now Ubiquitous Energy has raised $70 million in funds to date.
Safar Partners announced its participation in cleantech water project developer Gradiant’s Series C funding round in December 2021. One of Safar’s first portfolio companies, the Boston and Singapore-based startup originted at MIT. In this round, Gradiant raised over $100 million to continue developing global water and wastewater treatments. The company specifically focuses its efforts on the Asia Pacific region.
“We are proud to have been among the first investors in Gradiant and have witnessed incredible growth as the company’s solutions are adopted by manufacturers and other users in the textile and pharma sectors, municipalities, oil and gas producers, and desalination providers,” Nader Motamedy said in a statement.
