VCXA

Definitive Agreement

African Agriculture

VCXAU
First $9.91
Recent $8.44
15%

10X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp. II

Underwriter: Cantor Fitzgerald
Raised
$200M
CIK
1848898
SPAC Ticker
VCXAU
Merger
African Agriculture
Focus
Technology, Ecommerce, Software, Healthcare, Transportation, Mobility, Financial Services, Artificial Intelligence
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

Hans Thomas, 43, has served as our Chief Executive Officer since February 2021. Mr. Thomas founded 10X Capital in January 2004, and since its founding, he has served as chief executive officer of 10X Capital. Since July 2019, he has served chairman of 10X Capital subsidiary Growth Technology Partners and chairman of 10X Capital Partners, a FINRA-registered investment adviser. Mr. Thomas also served as executive director of One Zero Capital, a New York City-based financial technology (“FinTech”) investor, from August 2001 until December 2019. As an entrepreneur, Mr. Thomas was on the founding teams of venture-backed FinTech startup InternetCash (1999), online mortgage firm RefinanceOne (2004) and data science firm TheNumber (2015). Mr. Thomas is regarded as a top technology sector investor, financier and visionary because of his track record of identifying and investing in promising early stage opportunities and connecting them with institutional capital to help accelerate their growth. Notable portfolio companies and personal investments include Robinhood, AlphaFlow, Inc., Milo Credit, Better and Climb, whose equity investors include Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Point72 Ventures, Social Capital, and QED Investors, and whom have obtained significant financing from leading institutional investors and investment banks, such as The Blackstone Group, Inc. (NYSE: BX), The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Jefferies Group LLC. Mr. Thomas was also involved with 10X Capital’s role as an early investor in DraftKings Inc. (Nasdaq: DKNG), which completed a business combination with Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp., a SPAC, in April 2020. Mr. Thomas was also actively involved in the business combination process of Shift Technologies, Inc. (“Shift”), which announced a business combination transaction with Insurance Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: INSU), a SPAC, in June 2020. Mr. Thomas also currently serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of 10X I and 10X III. Mr. Thomas attended New York University. We believe Mr. Thomas is qualified to serve on our board of directors because of his experience in providing financing solutions for businesses, including with respect to business combinations and SPACs.

David Weisburd, 35, has been our Chief Operating Officer, Head of Origination and a Director since February 2021. Mr. Weisburd founded the venture capital firm Growth Technology Partners in May, 2015 and served as general partner until December 2019, when the firm was acquired by 10X Capital. The portfolio companies of Growth Technology Partners include 23andMe, CaaStle, Circle, Palantir, Pipefy, Punchh, Ripple, Tonal, Vicarious and Wish. Mr. Weisburd now serves as General Partner and co-head of venture capital at 10X Capital, where he has led the firm’s investments into Robinhood, Compass Therapeutics, HeadSpace and DraftKings Inc. (Nasdaq: DKNG). Mr. Weisburd also serves as a partner of Flight VC, an investment syndicate with over 2700 members across Silicon Valley and other tech hubs including Boston, Los Angeles, and New York, and whose members range from angel investors to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Flight VC has a prolific track record investing in companies including Betterment, Carta, Cruise Automotive, Discord, Dollar Shave Club, Fastly, Inc. (NYSE: FSLY), LinkedIn, Paypal, Inc. (Nasdaq: PYPL), Rent the Runway, and many others. In addition to his direct investment activity, Mr. Weisburd has also conducted a substantial amount of secondary market investment into companies such as Lyft, Inc. (Nasdaq: LYFT), One Medical Group (Nasdaq: ONEM), Space X, and Spotify (NYSE: SPOT). Prior to his venture capital career, Mr. Weisburd was on the founding teams of two venture-backed technology startups, isocket (acquired by Magnite (Nasdaq: MGNI)) and RoomHunt (acquired by RentLingo). Mr. Weisburd also currently serves as Chief Operating Officer and a member of the board of directors of 10X I and 10X III. Mr. Weisburd received a BS in management and entrepreneurship from Indiana University — Kelley School of Business, an MBA from Dartmouth — Tuck School of Business, and is currently pursuing a masters in psychology from Harvard University. We believe Mr. Weisburd is qualified to serve on our board of directors because of his track record of founding and investing in technology companies and his network of venture-backed founders, companies and venture capitalist co-investors throughout Silicon Valley.

Guhan Kandasamy, 39, has been our Chief Financial Officer since February 2021. Since April, 2018, Mr. Kandasamy has served as the chief credit and data officer and a member of the board of directors of 10X Capital Partners, LLC, where he also served as a member of the investment committee and oversaw the firm’s credit policy. In 2015, Mr. Kandasamy co-founded TheNumber, a One Zero Capital company, which provides credit market analytics and intelligence to leading credit hedge funds, Bulge Bracket Banks and Retail Banks. At TheNumber, he first served as the founding product manager, and as chief executive officer from January 2016 to March 2018. From October, 2010 to January 2015, Mr. Kandasamy served as global head of product and data analytics at Opera Solutions, LLC (now ElectrifAi), where he co-founded the company’s financial services vertical while helping the founders raise its first private capital from Silver Lake Partners, KKR & Co. Inc. and Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT). Mr. Kandasamy has also previously served as Vice President of US Structured Finance for the global credit ratings agency DBRS, Inc. and as analyst for the private secondary market firm SecondMarket, Inc., which was later acquired by Nasdaq. Prior to that, as its first product employee, he served as the founding product manager at CoreLogic, Inc. (NYSE: CLGX) from January 2004 to June 2007, and there he led development of CoreLogic’s product suite including Loansafe, the credit risk product used by a large portion of the mortgage market, as well as CoreLogic’s initial Automated Value Models (“AVMs”) and AVM cascade models for real estate assets, which remain the industry standard. During his tenure, he provided key evaluation and assistance to CoreLogic through several major corporate acquisitions, including First American Corporation. The company now produces over $1.7B in annual revenue and has an enterprise value of $5.3B. Mr. Kandasamy began his career in 2003 at the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae”) as a credit risk policy analyst, where he developed the agency’s still-operational and patented Consumer Credit Risk Assessment Model (FMCA), along with several capital allocation, collateral risk and property valuation models. Mr. Kandasamy also currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of 10X I and 10X III. Mr. Kandasamy received an MBA with a concentration in Finance from Oxford University in 2010 and a received a double BA from Johns Hopkins University in 2003.

Oliver Wriedt, 48, has served as our President and Head of Capital Markets since February 2021. Mr. Wriedt has twenty-seven years of experience in lending, structuring, portfolio management and business development. He has been an investor in early stage FinTech companies since 2014. Mr. Wriedt most recently served as chief executive officer of DFG Investment Advisers (“DFG”) from April 2019 to July 2020. DFG is a structured credit asset manager focused on collateralized loan obligations (“CLOs”) and leveraged loans, with $8 billion of assets under management (“AUM”). Prior to DFG, Mr. Wriedt spent six years at CIFC Asset Management from March 2012 to May 2018, where he most recently served as co-chief executive officer. During his tenure at CIFC, Mr. Wriedt took the company private in a $333 million strategic sale. CIFC’s AUM have grown to $26 billion. Mr. Wriedt was responsible for business development at the credit arm of Providence Equity Partners from 2010 to 2012. Later renamed Benefit Street, the asset manager grew to $26 billion and was acquired by Franklin Templeton (NYSE: BEN). Mr. Wriedt was previously a partner at Sciens Capital Management from 2008-2009 and was a partner at Golden Tree Asset Management from 2004 to 2008. Mr. Wriedt was originally trained as a banker at Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) and NORD/LB in Hannover, Singapore, London and New York. Since February 2020, Mr. Wriedt has served on the board of directors of Cadence Group, Inc., a New York-based digital securitization and investment platform for private credit. He is a seed investor in FinTech lenders Milo Credit and Pollen VC and payment platforms EMQ and QRails. In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors of The River Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating hunger, homelessness and poverty in New York City. Mr. Wriedt also currently serves as President and Head of Capital Markets of 10X I and 10X III. Mr. Wriedt graduated from Duke University in 1993 with an AB in History and Economics.

Christopher Jurasek, 55, will serve on our board of directors following the completion of this offering. Mr. Jurasek has been an operating executive for Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (“Clearlake”) since 2014. Clearlake is a Los Angeles-based private equity investor with $24 billion of AUM. Clearlake’s core target sectors include software and technology-enabled services, industrials and consumer. Since June 2020, Mr. Jurasek has also served as the chief executive officer of EagleView, a leading technology provider of aerial imagery, data analytics and GIS solutions with more than 200 patents, backed by Clearlake and Vista Equity Partners. Prior to EagleView, Mr. Jurasek served as president of JetSmarter, a private aviation software company acquired by Vista Global, from August 2018 to December 2019. Between February 2013 and January 2020, Mr. Jurasek also held the roles of president, chief executive officer and vice chairman of Calero Software, LLC, which merged with technology expense management software firm MDSL in a 2019 deal backed by Oak Hill Capital and Riverside Partners. From August 2017 to January 2019, he served as a member of the board of directors of ConvergeOne Holdings, Inc., a leading IT services provider of collaboration and technology solutions for large and medium enterprises, which went public through a business combination with a SPAC, Forum Merger Corp., in February 2018 at an enterprise value of $1.2 billion, and was subsequently acquired by CVC for $1.8 billion ($12.50 per common share). Mr. Jurasek also currently serves as a member of the board of directors of 10X I and 10X III. Christopher earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and holds a bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green State University. We believe Mr. Jurasek is qualified to serve on our board of directors because of his decades of experience leading global software and industrial technology companies and a track record of driving innovation to generate long-term value, customer engagement and sustainable growth.

Boris Silver, 32, will serve on our board of directors following the completion of this offering. Boris Silver is a technology entrepreneur and venture capital investor. Boris Silver is a technology entrepreneur and venture capital investor. Mr. Silver is Co-Founder and President of FundersClub Inc. (together with its affiliates and advised funds, “FundersClub”), a Silicon Valley-based online venture capital platform. FundersClub has invested in companies including Instacart, GitLab, Webflow, and others. FundersClub portfolio companies that have been acquired include Screenhero (acquired by Slack prior to direct listing of Slack (NYSE: WORK)), StatusPage (acquired by Atlassian (NASDAQ: TEAM)), and Second Measure (acquired by Bloomberg). Mr. Silver graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and is also an alumnus of Y Combinator.

Woodrow H. Levin, 42, will serve on our board of directors following the completion of this offering. Mr. Levin has served on the board of directors of DraftKings Inc. (Nasdaq: DKNG) since December 2013 and has helped the company navigate numerous regulatory and strategic challenges throughout his tenure, culminating in the recent merger with a SPAC, Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp., in April 2020. Since February 2019, Woody has been the founder and chief executive officer of Extend, Inc., a venture-backed technology company offering an application programming interface-first solution for merchants to offer extended warranties and protection plans. From February 2018 to February 2019, Mr. Levin was the founder and chief executive officer of 3.0 Capital, a multi-strategy crypto asset hedge fund. From August 2015 to February 2018, Mr. Levin was vice president of growth at DocuSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: DOCU) (“DocuSign”), which allows organizations to digitally prepare, sign and manage agreements. Mr. Levin founded Estate Assist, Inc. in February 2014, and has served as its chief executive officer until September 2015, when it was acquired by DocuSign. Mr. Levin also currently serves as a member of the board of directors of 10X I and 10X III. Mr. Levin received a BA in business from the University of Wisconsin and a JD from the Chicago-Kent School of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology. We believe that Mr. Levin is qualified to serve on our board of directors because of his experience with special purpose acquisition companies.