A member of the top 100 from the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist

Skyler Fernandes is the founding managing director of Simon Venture Group (SVG), a multi-stage corporate venturing group focused on “innovating the future of retail and commerce” on behalf of parent corporation Simon, a real estate group, and he is a man in a hurry to transform the world.

He said he graduated a year early from New York University, summa cum laude, due to his studies at Harvard University in quantum physics and foreign policy. He also created The Best Startup Pitch Deck, which has been viewed and downloaded more than 400,000 times, from his time running his personal seed fund, One Match Ventures, from 2010 until 2014, as well as one on corporate venturing, and he and his wife founded the board game The Next Big Thing: The Game of Entrepreneurship.

But it is his day job that has stood out, striking a deal a month over his unit’s first two years, including Augmate, Baublebar, Deliv, FabFitfun, and Ziploop. SVG’s site lists four exits already – Fashion Project, Fuhu, Rank & Style and Shopkick.
Asked about his achievements, Fernandes said: “We have established ourselves [as] the leading venture group focused on retail technology and retail brands. We have the largest scope and scale within the retail industry as we are backed by Simon, an S&P100 company, and largest retail real estate company in the world.

“We are the ideal strategic investor to help portfolio companies be introduced to retailers as we have the network of relationships with the biggest and largest number of retailers globally. Internally we have created our special forces or strategic support team to help our portfolio companies after we invest.

“We have grown the portfolio to 22 companies since launching 23 months ago. The first 18 months I operated as a single investment member, and recently added our second investment professional [Natalie Hwang, named a GCV Rising Star 2016]. She was screened from over 550 candidates, and has been a great addition to the team.

“As a thought leader, I have pushed the industry forward in thinking with new frameworks and coined phrases: 4th Dimension of Retail – Using Space and Time Differently, E-commerce to Brick (E2B) Brands and The Death of Pure-Play E-commerce.

“What I have been amazed by is how not only are each of our investments in innovative companies, but how many of the companies work together within each ecosystem to create the future of retail. These ecosystems include data analytics and marketing, localised and personalised commerce, smart city and smart building tech, re-commerce and experiential retail, and e-commerce to brick brands.

“We launched a startup competition with Plug and Play Ventures, called Simon Launch, where we invest and mentor very early retail tech companies.
We hosted the retail tech competition at SXSW. 


“In the year ahead, we plan to grow our venture team, as well as the portfolio with seven to 10 new investments.”

Fernandes lists dozens of speaking engagements over the past six years since leaving investment bank Credit Suisse in 2009.