Valar Ventures

The documented pathway to the Valar investment begins in November 2014, when Peter Thiel wrote to Epstein from his address at [email protected], describing McCormack and Fitzgerald as his scouts for international early-stage deals and recommending Epstein meet them ². The pitch materials cited Xero and TransferWise as the fund's marquee wins and proposed an investment in the range of USD 10–20M in Fund II. The meeting was scheduled for 2:00pm on December 3, 2014, at 9 East 71st Street.

Six schedule documents confirm the meeting ⁵⁶⁴⁷⁸⁹. Across those documents, one detail stands out: the attendance of Nicole Junkermann. EFTA02595701 records an email noting that Junkermann "would like to attend the Valar Ventures meeting with you on Wed. Dec. 3rd at 2pm" and was "going to look into tickets to fly to NY" — confirming she traveled specifically for this meeting rather than being incidentally present. Junkermann is separately documented in ICIJ Offshore Leaks as an officer of two offshore entities, United in Sports Parallel I GP Limited (BVI) and Copeland Securities Inc. No document in the available corpus explains why Junkermann attended a VC pitch to Epstein, or what role, if any, she played in the relationship between Epstein and Valar.

A second independent introduction pathway exists through Brad Karp, chairman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and Epstein's primary legal point of contact across 1,038+ documented communications. EFTA02473480 records Karp referencing an "interminable Xero board call" while corresponding with Epstein — Xero being one of Valar's two cited success investments. Karp's concurrent position as a Xero board member and as Epstein's attorney means that a secondary pathway to the Valar introduction through Karp cannot be excluded, alongside the Thiel-brokered channel.

The gap between the initial pitch and the eventual scale of investment defines the Valar relationship. Thiel proposed USD 10–20M ²; the eventual combined position reached USD 90.39M. Valar Global Fund II LP closed at USD 102M in January 2015. Fund III closed at USD 104M on June 20, 2016, with Thiel committing USD 30M of that total (EFTA02460935: "Total capital commitments for new fund are $104M, with Peter Thiel committing $30M"). Form D for Fund III (SEC CIK 1664457) records 23 investors total. Fund IV (SEC CIK 1726616) also received Epstein's participation; the 2018 Annual Report and Fund IV Initial Investments materials were forwarded to Epstein through Richard Kahn in May 2018 ¹⁰.

As of February 14, 2019, estimated unaudited capital account balances were: Valar Global Fund II LP = USD 40.7M and Valar Global Fund III LP = USD 49.69M, total USD 90.39M (EFTA02629770: "I would call them estimated 12/31/2018 capital account balances"). The Fund III balance of USD 49.69M exceeds Thiel's own USD 30M commitment to that same fund. On a proportional basis, Epstein held approximately 44% of Fund II and approximately 48% of Fund III — positions that, in a 23-investor vehicle, would make Epstein the largest single investor by a wide margin. These proportions are inferences from the closing totals and reported balances; actual ownership percentages depend on mark-to-market adjustments and capital calls not fully documented in the available corpus.

Epstein's engagement with the fund was active, not passive. In August 2015, Fitzgerald updated him on Fund II deal flow and Epstein requested a call ¹¹¹². In November 2015, McCormack sought a catch-up on Valar ¹³¹⁴. In 2016, McCormack asked Epstein to "sort out allocations for the first closing" of Fund III, with Epstein described as "thinking in a pretty broad range" ¹⁵. Epstein lunched with Thiel on November 27, 2017 (EFTA02230818: "12:00pm LUNCH w/Peter Thiel") and a November 2017 email records "Jeffrey is ready for your Valar call" ¹⁶. Epstein also queried whether there was a "side car of valar" for a separate investment ¹⁷.

All documented wire activity for the Valar investment was routed through Southern Trust Company Inc., Epstein's USVI-incorporated trust vehicle held at Deutsche Bank. Three wire transactions are confirmed in the corpus.

The earliest documented wires ¹⁸ show two transfers from Southern Trust to Valar Global Fund II LP at Silicon Valley Bank — USD 600K on 7/24 and USD 1M on 7/28 (dates and year inferred from document context). A subsequent USD 2.5M wire went to Silicon Valley Bank for Valar Global Fund III LP ¹⁹. The largest single transfer was USD 52.5M from Southern Trust to Valar Global Fund III on April 4, 2017 via Deutsche Bank, with Vahe Stepanian processing and Stewart Oldfield copied ²⁰.

The April 4, 2017 wire of USD 52.5M is the single largest documented transaction between Southern Trust and any investment vehicle. Southern Trust held a peak balance of USD 109.98M at Deutsche Bank in December 2015 (documented separately in the Southern Trust dossier). At the time of the USD 52.5M wire, Epstein's Fund III capital account ultimately registered USD 49.69M — indicating that some of the initial wire principal was not retained as capital account value, consistent with management fees, expenses, or market adjustments between April 2017 and the December 2018 reporting date.

The Dechert Exhibit B investment ledger ²¹ lists both Valar (attributed to "Peter Thiel") at approximately USD 28M and Honeycomb Asset Management LP at approximately USD 34M across five transactions. Both funds appear on the same ledger page as major allocations from Epstein's capital. David Fiszel, Honeycomb's founder and a former SAC Capital portfolio manager, was introduced to "Peter" (likely Thiel) by Epstein at 9 East 71st Street in February 2016 ²², and subsequently invested in Palantir through Honeycomb. The co-appearance of Valar and Honeycomb on the same ledger does not establish a connection between the two funds beyond their common LP.

All of Epstein's ongoing communications about Valar after the initial pitch were intermediated through Richard Kahn at HBRK Associates Inc., 575 Lexington Avenue 4th Floor, New York NY 10022. Kahn's role was that of a monitor and forwarding agent: he transmitted LP updates, portfolio company news, and risk alerts to Epstein, and appears to have served as the day-to-day point of contact for Valar's managing partners while Epstein dealt directly with Thiel only for high-level meetings.

Documented monitoring activity includes: forwarding a Bloomberg article (October 24, 2016) about Thiel's politics becoming a "deal killer in Silicon Valley" with the question "if article true will it impact our Valar investments" ²³; forwarding a Crunchbase and StashInvest link describing Stash (Valar Fund III's identified largest holding per Fitzgerald) with a note from James Fitzgerald as board member ²⁴; forwarding MarketWatch coverage of Stash's debit rewards launch ²⁵ with the question "should I try to open an account?"; and forwarding news of Valar's investment in Trading Ticket, a stock-trading startup backed by Valar Ventures and Citi Ventures ²⁶. Kahn also forwarded the 2018 Annual Report and Fund IV Initial Investments materials to Epstein ¹⁰.

The intermediation of all ongoing LP communications through Kahn and HBRK is consistent with the pattern observed across other major Epstein investments: Kahn served as a buffer layer between Epstein and investment managers, handling routine communications while Epstein reserved direct contact for Thiel himself. Whether Kahn received compensation from Epstein, from Valar, or from both for this function is not established in the available corpus.