Private Venture Fund Investment of Up to 130 Million Won: Choices of a Congressman Handling Energy and Budget

U.S. Representative Scott Peters (D-CA) recently disclosed that he made new investments at the end of March in two private pooled investment vehicles. The largest of these was a purchase of equity in the private venture fund Inverted Capital I LP, in the range of $51,000 to $100,000 (approximately KRW 65–130 million). He also invested between $1,001 and $15,000 (approximately KRW 1.3–20 million) in Allocate Alpha Fund II LP. Both transactions were purchases, executed on March 25–26, and were reported within one month in compliance with the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act).

Inverted Capital I LP is a Brooklyn-based private venture and fintech investment fund that has filed to raise $17.01 million (approximately KRW 22 billion) of new capital for 2025. As an unlisted private fund, it does not publish market prices or daily returns. However, with U.S. private-equity and venture deals reviving as interest rates peak, its returns will hinge on portfolio startups’ revaluations and the pace of exit events (IPOs and M&A). Institutional investors worldwide have boosted their alternative-asset allocations to around 20 percent in 2024–2025—particularly in private equity and private credit—providing strong support for demand in such private funds.

Allocate Alpha Fund II LP is a private fund managed by Allocate Management Company in Menlo Park, California, structured as a fund-of-funds that diversifies across multiple venture and private equity vehicles. By 2025, Allocate’s platform had grown to over $2.5 billion (approximately KRW 3.2 trillion) in assets under management, rapidly establishing itself as an alternative-investment platform for high-net-worth individuals and family offices seeking exposure to unlisted private markets. Like Inverted Capital I LP, this fund has no public share price, and its long-term performance will depend on improved IPO and M&A exit conditions, especially as valuation resets in the broader venture and private markets coincide with renewed focus on growth sectors such as AI and fintech.

Representative Peters, a centrist Democrat who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Budget Committee, has been deeply involved in policy areas including climate and clean energy, bio and life sciences, and digital-economy regulation. Both private funds he invested in target fintech and tech startups as well as the broader venture and private equity space—areas that overlap significantly with industries he legislates on, such as energy, healthcare, and digital infrastructure. Although private-fund investments are legal under the STOCK Act and are generally seen as carrying lower conflict-of-interest risk than direct stock ownership, critics note that private funds operate as “black-box” assets with limited disclosure requirements. With congressional and external discussions underway to ban a wider range of financial investments by lawmakers and their spouses—including private and hedge funds—some worry that a policymaker with access to privileged information could be deploying capital into high-risk alternative assets, potentially exposing him to reputational and public-trust risks.