John Curtius

Background

John Curtius is the founder and managing partner of Cedar Capital Group (also known as Cedar Investment Management), a technology-focused venture firm he launched after departing Tiger Global Management in October 2022 ¹². Cedar Capital Group is based in Coral Gables, Florida ⁴.

Curtius graduated from Princeton University with a BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, with a minor in Finance ³⁴. He began his investing career at Silver Lake as a senior associate (2010–2012), then moved to Elliott Management Corporation where he managed enterprise software investments (2012–2017) ³⁴.

In 2017, Curtius joined Tiger Global Management as a partner and quickly became head of the firm’s software and business-to-business investing practice ¹²⁶. During his five years at Tiger, he led approximately 111 deals according to PitchBook, though Forbes reported his portfolio encompassed more than 250 companies ²⁵. Software startups made up approximately 70% of Tiger’s private portfolio, and Curtius was the firm’s most active investor on the venture capital side ⁵. He generated approximately $4.5 billion across public and private deals ⁶.

Notable investments Curtius led or was closely involved with at Tiger Global include Databricks, Snowflake, Toast, SentinelOne, GitLab, Snyk, Kustomer, Lattice, Cockroach Labs, Procore, Asana, DataRobot, Highspot, Weave, and many others ¹⁶.

Curtius debuted at No. 64 on the Forbes Midas List of the world’s top private tech investors in April 2022 ⁷. He was named to Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list in 2022 ³.

After departing Tiger Global in October 2022 — earlier than his originally planned June 2023 departure — Curtius began raising capital for Cedar Investment Management, reportedly targeting $1 billion for his debut fund ²⁵⁸. Cedar focuses on Series A through Series C investments in enterprise software companies in the United States and Europe ¹³⁸.

Stated Thesis

Cedar’s website describes its mission as “Backing the World’s Best” founders ²⁵. Curtius has stated that Cedar will focus on B2B software-as-a-service, applications, infrastructure, AI, and machine learning ⁸.

Curtius has expressed a strong conviction in software as a business model, stating:

“Software is the best business model in the world” and “can offer incredibly compelling risk-adjusted return opportunities.” ³

At Tiger Global, Curtius described his approach to market selection:

“At Tiger Global, we look for large market opportunities that are in the early stages of penetration.” ⁹

Cedar’s stated focus areas include B2B software, fintech, and marketplace businesses, drawing on Curtius’s 12 years of investing experience across these sectors ⁸. The firm targets Series A to Series C stage companies, representing a narrower and earlier focus than Tiger Global’s broader multi-stage mandate ¹³.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 44 verified investments in the portfolio table below (a fraction of the 250+ deals Curtius was involved with at Tiger Global), the following patterns emerge. Note: most of these investments were made while Curtius was at Tiger Global, not at Cedar Capital, which is still in its early years of deployment.

Sector Allocation (computed from 44 verified investments, single-category assignment)

• Enterprise SaaS / Productivity: 13 companies (30%) — Lattice, Asana, Procore, Kustomer, Monograph, Contentful, Highspot, Process Street, Pendo, Olo, Workvivo, Airtable, Unit21
• Infrastructure / Developer Tools / DevOps: 10 companies (23%) — Databricks, Snowflake, GitLab, Cockroach Labs, Komodor, Deepgram, Cribl, dbt Labs, MotherDuck, Vercel
• AI / ML / Data: 5 companies (11%) — DataRobot, Thoughtspot, Scale AI, OpenAI, Pinecone
• Cybersecurity / Data Privacy: 3 companies (7%) — Snyk, SentinelOne, BigID
• Fintech / Financial Infrastructure: 1 company (2%) — Codat
• Healthcare IT / AI: 2 companies (5%) — Innovaccer, Viz.ai
• Food Service / Hospitality: 2 companies (5%) — Toast, Restaurant365
• Enterprise Learning: 1 company (2%) — Go1
• Logistics: 1 company (2%) — Pallet
• Other (IoT, HR, Communication, MarTech, Services): 6 companies (14%) — Samsara, Weave, Sendbird, CleverTap, Gupshup, Zenoti

Math: 13+10+5+3+1+2+2+1+1+6 = 44 companies total, matching the portfolio table.

This sample of 44 investments heavily favors publicly announced deals and likely over-represents larger, later-stage investments.

Stage Distribution

At Tiger Global, Curtius invested primarily at Series B through Series D, reflecting Tiger’s growth-stage mandate. At Cedar Capital, he has shifted earlier to Series A through Series C, with a stated check size sweet spot of $1.5M and range of $100K to $5M ⁴. This represents a significant stage shift from growth to early-growth investing.

Geographic Concentration

Primarily US-based companies, with notable investments in India (Innovaccer, CleverTap, Gupshup, Zenoti) and Israel (Komodor, BigID) ⁶⁹. Cedar’s stated focus is US and Europe ⁸.

Decision Speed and Deal Volume

Curtius was known at Tiger Global for extremely high deal velocity — 111 to 250+ deals in approximately five years, or roughly one deal every one to two weeks ⁵. Tiger Global’s broader reputation for fast term sheets and minimal governance requirements was a hallmark of the Curtius era ⁵.

Co-Investor Patterns

At Tiger Global, Curtius typically led rounds. Co-investors on deals he was involved with include Accel (Komodor), Felicis (Komodor), Index Ventures (Codat), Steadview Capital (Innovaccer), and Dragoneer (Innovaccer) ¹¹²¹⁹.

Notable Gaps

Despite the breadth of Tiger Global’s portfolio, Curtius’s verified investments are overwhelmingly B2B software. There is minimal consumer internet, hardware, biotech, or climate tech exposure. The shift to Cedar represents a conscious narrowing from Tiger’s broad mandate to a focused enterprise software thesis at earlier stages.

Portfolio

Tiger Global era (2017–2022)

Additional confirmed investments (era unclear or post-Tiger)

Note: Curtius was involved with 250+ companies at Tiger Global; this table of 44 companies represents approximately 18% of that total. Many exact investment dates are not publicly disclosed. Years marked with “~” are estimates based on funding round timing. Go1, Airtable, Scale AI, OpenAI, Cribl, dbt Labs, MotherDuck, Pinecone, and Vercel were confirmed as Curtius-backed investments via his LinkedIn post ²⁴ but it is unclear whether some were Tiger Global-era or Cedar Capital-era investments. Pallet’s Series A was led by Bain Capital Ventures; Curtius participated as an angel investor ¹⁹. Cedar Capital’s portfolio is still growing and may include investments not yet publicly announced.

In Their Own Words

On software as a business model:

“Software is the best business model in the world” and “can offer incredibly compelling risk-adjusted return opportunities.” ³

On market selection at Tiger Global:

“At Tiger Global, we look for large market opportunities that are in the early stages of penetration.” ⁹

On Monograph (Series B, 2021):

“Monograph is built for architects by architects, which is why it excels at providing a solution to minimize the time spent managing a project.” ¹⁰

On Komodor (Series B, 2022):

“Komodor is loved by teams adopting Kubernetes because it makes every engineer a confident technical leader and operator. We are thrilled to be backing Ben and the Komodor team and believe Komodor is a special company.” ¹¹

On Innovaccer (Series D, 2021):

“Innovaccer stands to become a meaningful beneficiary of the generational architectural shift taking place in healthcare information technology.” ⁹

“Innovaccer is poised to capture a disproportionate share of spending as customers leverage its platform to unify the patient experience, move more of their IT to the cloud, and focus on orchestrating improved clinical and business processes.” ⁹

On Codat (Series B, 2021):

“The number of SMB-focused software products will continue to proliferate, and we expect many of these products to be powered by Codat in the future.” ²¹

On Unit21 (Series B, 2021):

“We are excited to support Unit21 as it transforms an organization’s ability to analyze data to its advantage for risk management and compliance.” ²²

On Viz.ai (Series D, 2022):

“Viz.ai is the stand out AI healthcare company; they are first-in-class in intelligent care coordination, with a solid foundation of clinical evidence supporting the value delivered to healthcare providers and patients.” ²³

On DataRobot (Series G, 2021):

“Since day one, DataRobot has been committed to the democratization of trusted AI.” ¹⁵

On portfolio success (LinkedIn, April 2024):

“Proud to have backed Airtable, Cribl, Databricks, MotherDuck, OpenAI, dbt Labs, Pinecone, Scale AI, Snyk, and Vercel! Congrats all on making the Enterprise Tech 30 list for 2024!” ²⁴

What Founders Say

Robert Yuen, Co-Founder & CEO of Monograph, reflecting on the Tiger Global-led Series B:

“It felt like you could never spend it all. But we lost some of the financial discipline that’s required to run a business.” ²⁰

Note: This quote, from a 2025 retrospective, reflects Yuen’s candid assessment of the challenges that came with a large infusion of growth-stage capital — a common theme among founders backed by Tiger Global during the 2020–2021 era.

Tiger Global portfolio founder (unnamed, quoted in Fortune): A portfolio founder stated they don’t anticipate “any kind of major impact” from Curtius’s departure from Tiger Global, citing the firm’s large team and strong processes ⁵.

No additional independently sourced founder testimonials specifically about John Curtius were found despite dedicated searching across Twitter/X, podcast transcripts, and press coverage. Curtius maintains a relatively low public profile for an investor of his stature, and much of his deal-making at Tiger Global happened at high speed with limited public commentary from founders.

Sources