Founder Notes with Nelson Chu and Prath Reddy

Gates are back — and this time it's BCRED. Nelson and Prath dig into why fund managers are choosing to gate rather than sell into a buyer-scarce secondary market, what Apollo's daily pricing initiative actually means (spoiler: mark-to-model, just more frequently), and whether the SpaceX IPO pop is a sign of healthy markets or peak froth. They close on the AI IPO pipeline — Anthropic and Op...

The US just lost its last AAA credit rating, and Nelson and Prath are not exactly shocked — but they are keeping score. This episode traces the economics of a bifurcating country where SpaceX employees are bidding $2M over ask on dilapidated San Francisco houses and everyone else is paying $7.29 for gas, then pivots to private credit: why $18 billion in annual secondary trading sounds impressive u...

Cerebras IPOs at $68 billion with 320 employees, SpaceX is reportedly eyeing a $1.5T tape, and Anthropic is racing to beat OpenAI to the public markets. Meanwhile a gallon of gas hit $7.50 near a California airport, the CPI print came in hot, and the stock market still closed at record highs. Nelson and Prath unpack the disconnect — and what it means when "trillion" stops meaning what it...

Q1 is in the books and the board meeting is next week. Nelson and Prath get into what the quarter actually looked like: net flows flat, no gates, new AUM high, while the private credit headlines said otherwise. They also cover Anthropic’s $900B raise, where OpenAI and Claude actually stand in the model wars, Prath’s rate prediction coming in, and what “sell in May” means when the Nasdaq refuses to...

Bank earnings are blowing out, and every CEO is suddenly talking up private credit — the same asset class they spent last year warning about. Nelson and Prath break down why banks quietly need private credit to work, how back-leverage facilities keep banks winning either way, and what the new CDX Private Credit Index signals about an industry that still needs more maturity.

Prath comes off the road from back-to-back investor conferences in Deer Valley and Aspen with a read on where institutional sentiment actually stands. Then Nelson and Prath dig into the Blue Owl 40.7% redemption headline, why JPMorgan and Goldman building short tools is actually a sign of maturity, and what PIMCO, KKR, and J.P. Morgan are all saying about asset-based finance as the safe harbor in...

The media is having a field day with private credit redemptions, but is the panic justified? This week, Nelson and Prath break down the barrage of gating headlines from BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan’s software loan markdowns, and why bad fund wrappers are causing more pain than bad underwriting. Plus, they unpack New York’s new Buy Now, Pay Later rules, early traction from Percent’s secon...

Blackstone processes $3.8 billion in record redemptions while its executives write $400 million in checks to cover the gap. Another double-pledging scandal surfaces, this time in the UK. Nelson and Prath break down why private credit's credibility crisis is creating a window for differentiated players. Then Prath finally goes down the AI rabbit hole, building tear sheets with Claude to spinnin...

This week’s theme is simple: the people who didn’t do the work got caught. Nelson and Prath cover First Brands, double-pledging, and why relying on PDFs is not monitoring. They also get into the semi-liquid BDC squeeze, the software concentration shell game, and why secondaries are becoming unavoidable.

While Prath’s in Arizona and Nelson’s battling an AI agent back in New York, the duo unpacks the AI-driven software selloff and what it could mean for private credit. They dig into BlackRock TCP’s write-down and why public markets keep calling private marks’ bluff, then close with the policy wildcard of a 10% credit card cap and what it means for a consumer already under strain.

We almost got caught up in the First Brands mess years ago, but declined because it didn’t pass muster. Now it’s a $2.3B black hole. This week, Nelson and Prath unpack what went wrong, why redemptions are spiking, and the absurdity of private credit ETFs. Also: our secondary market is getting real traction, Brex just sold for $5B, and the administration wants a 10% credit card cap that could do mo...

Prath’s favorite saying becomes the theme of the episode. In the first full week of 2026, Percent signed a new software client, activated white-label platforms, saw organic secondary market traction, and onboarded two new hires already closing deals. Nelson and Prath break down what’s actually clicking, where private credit is headed, and why contrarian bets are starting to pay off.

In this episode, I sit down with Bryan Pham, our Head of Institutional Sales, to talk about the launch of our Separately Managed Accounts and why we built them. Bryan came from the other side of the table—JP Morgan, family offices—and he’s lived the exact frustrations we’re now solving. We dig into why institutional money moves differently than retail, the phone calls that made us realize Blended...

We built a durable marketplace. Now the industry needs infrastructure, and that starts with me returning to square one. It won’t be forever, but six to twelve months of trench time will compound for years.

I sit down with Marc Andrew, who's become a leading voice in private markets by putting the right people in the right room together. We cover the slow decline of public listings, why firms can’t run on Excel anymore, and how AI, cloud, and interoperable data are opening real build zones. It’s a deep dive into the unsexy but essential plumbing for the future of finance.

Private credit funds often use “volatility laundering” to make returns look smoother than they are. In this episode, I talk about why Percent decided to do things differently, what radical transparency looks like in practice, and how sharing the full story with investors has helped us build lasting trust and a stronger business.

What happens when a capital markets pro pivots to product? In this episode, Kiley Lubeck and I discuss her journey from manually confirming allocations on a broken CMS to building tech that processes billions. We cover the brutal art of roadmap prioritization, why fintech PMs think like compliance officers, and how our biggest product wins came from solving our own worst pain points.

I break down the absurdity of today’s private credit markets: no liquidity, no standards, no real price discovery. But I also talk about what comes next—and how real infrastructure could double the market and unlock access for 199,000 underserved companies.

In this episode, I sit down with Paola Rios, our VP of Investor Relations & Syndication and employee #7, who's been with us since the early days when syndication was just "scramble." We dive into the art of matchmaking between borrowers who want cheap money and investors who want high returns, the plot twists that make her wish for a punching bag, and why herd mentality drives mo...

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on Percent’s chaotic origin story—from having investors lined up with zero borrowers to closing our first deal for a few hundred thousand dollars we now laugh about. I share the unglamorous truth about playing the two-sided confidence game every marketplace founder knows, why we chose to be exponentially better rather than revolutionary, and the critic...

What does it take to be approved for a deal on Percent? This week, I chat with Bina Shetty, who leads our originations team and brings decades of investment banking experience to the table. We cover how we underwrite non-bank lenders, why Latin America is a breakout region for private credit, and why the best founders keep things simple and scrappy. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at how our marketp...

The traditional startup playbook—raise big, spend fast, swing for the fences—is fading. In this episode, I unpack why the VC model is under pressure, how AI is fueling a new era of smaller, faster, more profitable startups, and why debt might beat equity for founders who want to scale on their own terms. If you’re still raising like it’s 2013, this one’s for you.

This week, I sat down with Sean Smith, co-founder of SMB Investor Network, to talk about a very different slice of the private markets—entrepreneurship through acquisition. We cover everything from his leveraged finance days at CIBC to why he's now focused on buying HVAC companies and plumbing businesses. Plus, we discuss how private credit and SMB equity are surprisingly complementary when it...

With new tariffs already taking effect—and more on the way—I wanted to unpack how this shift is affecting small businesses, capital flows, and ultimately, how we're adapting our lending strategy at Percent to navigate these changes. From forced supply chain changes to increased capital needs, these policy moves are reshaping the economic landscape. I also share listener questions on team dynam...

In this episode, I’m joined by Lucas Keefer, VP of Originations and one of the earliest team members at Percent. We talk about what it really takes to build a company from the ground up — wearing multiple hats, embracing uncertainty, and learning by doing. Lucas shares his journey from JPMorgan to Percent and how “filling the gaps” helped shape both his career and our company. If you’ve ever wonde...