Paligan is a venture firm by origin, but a deal manager by design. Our model was never built around a fund mandate or a sector label. It was built around discipline: finding structured, high-conviction opportunities and backing them when the terms make sense. Sometimes those opportunities are equity rounds, and sometimes they are not.
The Same Thinking, a Different Instrument
Lending to companies or assets by non-bank investors, outside the public bond markets.More in glossary applies the same thinking to a different instrument, and it is what a model built on flexibility looks like when the flexibility is used.
We are drawn to select situations where we understand the structure, have shaped the terms, and have priced the risk with clarity. That usually means short-duration deals and asset-backed lending, where the collateral and the route to repayment can be defined before anything is signed, and we take a deal seriously only when the return justifies the complexity.
The Filters Stay the Same
Credit gets the same scrutiny as equity. We underwrite the counterparties, examine the collateral and test enforceability, and we check repayment mechanics and timelines before anything moves forward.
If we cannot shape the terms or understand what secures the deal, we walk. Passive exposure is not something we pursue in equity, and it is not something we pursue here either.
The Advantage of Having No Mandate
Most fund managers are constrained by fund documentation, investment committee mandates, or the simple reputational weight of having told their LPs what they are. We built Paligan specifically to avoid that trap.
Our deal-by-deal model means every investment is evaluated on its own merits. We do not need to justify style drift because there is no style to drift from. There is only the deal, and whether it holds up.
The credit deals that interest us most are the ones whose structure we can test in full: what secures the loan, how and when it repays, and what happens if it does not. A higher expected return only matters to us if that test holds, because in credit the upside is capped while the loss is not.
When a structure holds up under scrutiny we will consider backing it, and when it does not we pass.
Why a Venture Boutique Looks at Credit
A fair question is why a borrower or a credit investor would deal with a firm that started in venture rather than with a credit specialist. Pure-play venture firms mostly stay out of credit, and for good reason, since their mandates and their networks are built for equity.
Our answer is that the toolset carries over. Assessing a credit deal relies on much of the same work we do for an equity round: understanding the business behind the borrower, testing the structure and judging the people on the other side of the table. We draw on the same advisors and the same An investor who joins a deal alongside a lead, usually with a smaller ticket and through the same vehicle.More in glossary for both, and some of the most interesting credit deals reach us through that network without our having gone looking for them. It also means a credit deal gets the same underwriting as everything else we look at.
Following the Deal
We do not chase categories. We follow conviction wherever it leads, and we structure carefully when we get there.
Whether the deal is a priced equity round, a structured bridge, or a well-built private credit transaction, the question is always whether the risk makes sense and whether the structure protects it.
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