Aldaron, a new US private equity firm, has closed its debut fund with about 885 million dollars in commitments, its founders told The Wall Street Journal, bringing total assets under management close to 1 billion dollars. The firm was founded by Jay Grewal, who co-founded Palantir’s commercial business and led more than 600 engineers there, Evan Mendez, from Carlyle’s US technology buyout team, and Will Oberndorf, who led private markets investing at his family’s investment office.
Aldaron targets US companies with enterprise values between 200 million dollars and 1 billion dollars. Its stated model differs from conventional buyouts: half of its 12 staff, split between New York and San Francisco, are engineers who work inside portfolio companies to build and deploy AI systems, with revenue growth and headcount growth as the stated aims rather than layoffs. Some engineers, including Grewal, sit on investment committees and portfolio boards.
The proof case is already owned. Aldaron’s first investment, completed in March 2026, was a majority stake in Oak Point Partners, which acquires residual and dormant assets from companies, including in bankruptcy processes. Since the acquisition, Oak Point says AI tools have lifted identified opportunities from one or two a week to 10 to 12 a week, and headcount has grown about 20 percent to 75 employees, with a target of 100 within a year. Purchase consideration for Oak Point was not disclosed.
Those operating figures are company reported, not audited returns, and the fund has no realised track record yet. What is established is the raise itself: in the fundraising market described in yesterday’s edition, where sub billion dollar infrastructure and buyout funds are struggling, a debut manager with an engineering staff model cleared close to 900 million dollars at first close of its public life.