our initial business combination. The obligations under the forward purchase agreement will not depend on whether any Class A ordinary shares are redeemed by our public shareholders. The Class A ordinary shares and redeemable warrants issuable pursuant to the forward purchase agreement will be identical to the Class A ordinary shares and redeemable warrants included in the units in the Initial Public Offering, respectively, except that the affiliate of our sponsor will have certain registration rights, as described herein.
While we may pursue a business combination target in any business, industry, sector or geographical location, we are focusing our search for an initial business combination in the intersection of financial services and technology globally. We may pursue a transaction in which our shareholders immediately prior to the completion of our initial business combination would collectively own a minority interest in the post-business combination company.
Our Sponsor and Guiding Principles
Our sponsor is an affiliate of Ribbit Capital, a family of investment funds based in Palo Alto, California, focused on the intersection of financial services and technology. Ribbit Capital was founded in 2012 by Meyer “Micky” Malka, an entrepreneur and investor with over 25 years of experience building and investing in technology and financial services businesses throughout the world. Ribbit Capital manages more than $2.6 billion of committed capital on behalf of its investors, many of which have been with Ribbit Capital since inception. The mission of Ribbit Capital is to change the world of finance by providing capital and guidance to visionary financial services entrepreneurs. To that end, Ribbit Capital has built a portfolio of over 75 private and public company investments across six continents and a multitude of sectors within financial services, including payments, personal finance, investments and wealth, lending, insurance, crypto assets, financial infrastructure, financial software, and home finance. Ribbit Capital’s investments include such leaders in these sectors as Affirm, Inc., Brex Inc., Coalition, Inc., Coinbase, Inc., Credit-Karma, Inc. CRB Group, Inc. (which does business as Cross River Bank), Dhani Services Limited (formerly Indiabulls Ventures Limited) (NSE: DHANI), Figure Technologies, Inc., MercadoLibre, Inc. (NASDAQ:MELI), Next Insurance, Inc., Nu Holdings Ltd. (which does business as Nubank), Revolut Ltd., Robinhood Markets, Inc., Root, Inc., Sea Limited (NYSE:SE), Viva Republica Inc. (which does business as Toss), Upgrade, Inc., and Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZG).
Ribbit Capital strives to be more than a source of financial capital to entrepreneurs. Prior to Ribbit Capital, Mr. Malka was a founder to multiple companies across banking, brokerage, and payments and led them to successful exits. Since founding Ribbit Capital, he and his team have built a robust family of investment funds which has provided the opportunity to invest and partner with several of the top financial technology companies of the past decade. This background allows Ribbit Capital to approach entrepreneurs as collaborators, offering data, perspectives, and lessons learned in innovative financial businesses across geographies and over time. By applying this partnership orientation and operator mentality, Ribbit Capital is able to create meaningful, lasting relationships with entrepreneurs. Ribbit Capital has demonstrated a strong track record as an investment manager for its nine flagship closed-end private funds and its several special purpose vehicles. The compound annual rate of return of its aggregate portfolio—as measured by the ratio of the fair market value of Ribbit Capital’s portfolio and distributions to the aggregate paid in capital of all of the funds it manages—has materially exceeded the upper quartile of its benchmark, the U.S. Venture Capital Index per Cambridge Associates, from the day Ribbit Capital started through December 31, 2020. Ribbit Capital’s performance is consistent across its fund vintages, with each of its flagship funds over two years old delivering a compound annual rate of return to investors of more than 30% before fees and expenses.
The following principles underpin the culture and organization of Ribbit Capital, and serve as the foundation for Ribbit LEAP:
We are mission-oriented. We believe that technology has the potential to make finance more transparent and accessible across the world. Driven by this belief, we are focused on helping to build the financial services brands of tomorrow. Consistency allows us to develop informed, data-rich perspectives on industry trends and business models. Our depth in the space leads to stronger relationships with entrepreneurs and investors and to wider visibility into investment opportunities, as evidenced by the more than 5,000 companies that we monitor worldwide across financial technology.
We are patient. We believe that enduring financial services companies cannot be built overnight. We underwrite each investment with a decade-plus investment horizon and aspire to invest in assets that we would be willing to hold indefinitely. When working with companies, our focus is on compounding sources of value rather than short-term earnings performance. This mentality aligns with the technology- and customer-centric mentality of the entrepreneurs and management teams with whom we partner and allows us to invest in opportunities that grow exponentially rather than linearly.