Mala Gaonkar

Background

Mala Gaonkar (born November 1969) is an Indian-American hedge fund manager and the founder of SurgoCap Partners ¹. She was born in the United States and raised primarily in Bengaluru, India ². She attended Spanish River High School in Boca Raton, Florida, graduating in 1987 ¹. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1991 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1996 ³. She is a Kauffman Fellow ³.

Gaonkar began her career as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, working in the Munich and Hong Kong offices ⁴. She then worked as a researcher at Chase Capital Partners, specializing in internet and technology companies ⁴. She also served as a consultant at the World Bank in Mongolia, collaborating with UN teams on industrial privatization ⁴.

In 1998, Gaonkar joined Lone Pine Capital as a founding partner, a Tiger Cub hedge fund founded by Stephen Mandel ¹. Three years later, in 2001, she was named portfolio manager overseeing the firm’s investments in technology, media, internet, and telecommunications sectors ¹. She also co-headed Lone Pine’s long-only strategies ². When Mandel stepped back from day-to-day operations in 2019, Gaonkar was named one of three portfolio managers (alongside Kelly Granat and David Craver) overseeing Lone Pine’s $16.7 billion in assets ¹. She spent approximately 23 years at Lone Pine, contributing to the firm’s growth into a $33 billion powerhouse ¹.

In 2022, Gaonkar left Lone Pine Capital and founded SurgoCap Partners ². The fund launched on January 3, 2023, with $1.8 billion in assets under management — the largest-ever debut of a hedge fund led by a woman ². By 2024, SurgoCap had grown its assets to over $3 billion ⁵, and by January 2026, assets had tripled to approximately $6 billion ⁶. The firm employs about 20 people and can invest up to 25% of its assets in private companies ².

Beyond investing, Gaonkar co-founded Surgo Foundation in 2015 with Sema Sgaier to apply artificial intelligence and behavioral science to global health challenges ². In 2020, they co-founded Surgo Ventures, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization focused on solving health and social problems with data-driven precision ³. She signed the Giving Pledge in 2022, committing the majority of her wealth to philanthropy ⁷.

Gaonkar serves as a founding trustee of Ariadne Labs (a Harvard University health initiative), a trustee of the Tate Foundation, a trustee of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a founding trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, a trustee of the Paris Review Foundation, and an advisory board member of The Economist ⁴. She also sits on the Global Advisory Board of Macro Advisory Partners ⁴.

She co-created “Theater of the Mind,” an immersive theatrical experience exploring neuroscience and perception, with musician David Byrne ⁸. Gaonkar married David Byrne in September 2025 ⁹. She has published short stories in literary journals and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize ². She was previously married to German private equity investor Oliver Haarmann ¹.

Stated Thesis

SurgoCap Partners publicly describes its focus as investing in “the long-term and disruptive impacts of technology innovation across broad areas of the global markets” ¹⁰.

Gaonkar has stated that she defines a great business as “a business with very long duration moats” and that “duration really is our true differentiation” ¹¹. She has said that SurgoCap “tries to beat the market over a three to five-year cycle with less risk than the market, risk defined as loss of capital, not volatility” ¹¹.

She has described four core focus areas: enterprise data and technology, financial services, healthcare services, and industrial technologies ¹¹. Gaonkar has emphasized that “every business is a technology business” and that understanding “the tech stack map of businesses is something we spend a lot of time on, especially in non-tech businesses” ¹¹.

On private company investing, Gaonkar has stated that “change always happens at the edges, not at the core” and that “the edges is really the small company, the private company, the unsung founder who’s just emerging” ¹¹.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 17 verified public equity positions from SurgoCap Partners’ Q4 2025 13F filing (reporting period ending December 31, 2025) ¹², plus 3 verified private company investments ^{13 14}, the following patterns emerge. Note that the 13F only covers long U.S. equity positions and represents a portion of the fund’s total $6 billion in assets ⁶.

Sector distribution (17 public equity positions): - Technology: 5 of 17 positions (29%) — Alphabet, Broadcom, Nvidia, Shopify, Figma - Financial services: 4 of 17 positions (24%) — LPL Financial, Blackstone, Guidewire Software, NIQ Global Intelligence - Healthcare: 3 of 17 positions (18%) — McKesson, Boston Scientific, Intuitive Surgical - Industrials/materials: 3 of 17 positions (18%) — Carpenter Technology, Armstrong World Industries, Taiwan Semiconductor - Consumer/hospitality: 1 of 17 positions (6%) — Hilton Worldwide - Fintech (emerging market): 1 of 17 positions (6%) — Nu Holdings

By market value, the largest allocations are: - Alphabet (GOOG): $392M (10.9% of 13F portfolio) - Carpenter Technology (CRS): $363M (10.1%) - LPL Financial (LPLA): $355M (9.8%) - McKesson (MCK): $344M (9.5%) - Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM): $337M (9.3%)

These top 5 positions account for roughly 50% of the disclosed public portfolio, indicating a highly concentrated strategy ¹².

Concentration and portfolio construction: SurgoCap runs a concentrated book of approximately 12-17 public equity positions per quarter. The fund grew from 12 positions ($2.0B) in Q1 2025 to 17 positions ($3.6B) in Q4 2025, reflecting both capital inflows and new position additions ^{12 5}.

Private company investments: SurgoCap participated in Figma’s $12.5 billion Series F round in May 2024 alongside Coatue Management, General Catalyst, and Alkeon Capital Management ¹³. The fund also co-led a financing round for iCapital, an alternative investment platform ¹⁴. The fund allocates up to 25% of assets to private companies ².

Notable pattern — technology applied to traditional sectors: The portfolio heavily reflects Gaonkar’s stated thesis about technology disrupting non-technology businesses. Carpenter Technology (specialty alloys), McKesson (healthcare distribution), and LPL Financial (wealth management infrastructure) are all traditional-sector companies with significant technology components. This aligns with her stated focus but is genuinely reflected in the portfolio data.

Notable gap — no pure software/SaaS concentration: Despite Gaonkar’s 23-year career managing technology investments at Lone Pine Capital, SurgoCap’s portfolio is not a typical tech-heavy hedge fund. Only Alphabet, Broadcom, Nvidia, and Shopify are conventional technology companies. The portfolio is more diversified across sectors than one might expect from her background.

Performance: SurgoCap returned 32.56% in 2024 and 22.04% year-to-date through Q4 2025 ⁵. Q4 2025 performance was approximately 4.89% ⁵.

Turnover and trading activity: In Q4 2025, SurgoCap initiated new positions in Intuitive Surgical ($149M), Nvidia ($116M), Armstrong World Industries ($72M), and Shopify ($56M), while completely exiting Netflix ($223M sold) and significantly reducing Meta Platforms ($155M sold) ¹⁵.

Portfolio

Public Equity Holdings (13F, as of December 31, 2025)

Source: 13F filing for period ending 12/31/2025 ¹².

Private Company Investments

Notable Prior Holdings (Exited)

In Their Own Words

On defining great businesses: “The way I define a great business is a business with very long duration moats. And duration really is our true differentiation.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On SurgoCap’s investment objective: “SurgoCap tries to beat the market over a three to five-year cycle with less risk than the market, risk defined as loss of capital, not volatility.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On technology in non-tech businesses: “Every business is a technology business. So if you’re an aerospace company or a med tech business or a financial data business, you are a technology company in your backbone.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On technology stack analysis: “Understanding the tech stack map of businesses is something we spend a lot of time on, especially in non-tech businesses.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On where innovation happens: “Change always happens at the edges, not at the core. And that’s my fundamental view. And the edges is really the small company, the private company, the unsung founder who’s just emerging.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On team size: “We’d like to stay at one pizza box in terms of our team size.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On avoiding FOMO: “I like to tell my team it’s not FOMO — it’s TOMO, thoughtfully missing out.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On meritocracy in investing: “I could be a green Martian with two horns in my head. But if I produce investment returns, there’ll be a line out the door.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On the stress of short-selling: “It’s just so, so stressful. To be sure, I enjoy it. Because you are wrong for such a long period of time.” — Mala Gaonkar, “In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen” podcast, January 2026 ¹¹.

On philanthropy, from her Giving Pledge letter: “Giving money away is often termed generous. But if being generous means sacrificing a great deal, then I do not qualify. If anything, doing this has richly rewarded me, not just with ideas and insights, but also with bonds to some of the most important people in my life.” — Mala Gaonkar, The Giving Pledge, 2022 ⁷.

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. SurgoCap Partners primarily invests in public equities and late-stage private companies, which limits the availability of traditional founder-investor relationship testimonials.

Sources