Another Goldman Sachs partner is leaving, this time giving up oversight of $2 billion for a London VC with a leading stake in neobank Revolut

• Rana Yared resigned as a Goldman Sachs partner this week, dealing a blow to the firm's ambitions to include more women in its highest ranks and losing a key figure for investing in technology projects.
• Yared will become a general partner at Balderton Capital, a London-based venture capital firm that raised $400 million for early-stage investments last November.
• Balderton was an early investor in Revolut, one of the world's most successful digital banks that had been in talks for funding that could value it between $5 billion and $10 billion.
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Rana Yared, a Goldman Sachs partner overseeing more than $2 billion in principal investments for the firm, is leaving to join one of Europe's leading venture capital firms.

Yared will become a general partner at Balderton Capital, according to people with knowledge of her plans. A Goldman Sachs spokesperson declined to comment.

Balderton is one of the "big four" VCs focused on early-stage companies and based in London, according to an article in TechCrunch, which listed Accel, Index, and Atomico as the others. The firm has invested more than $3 billion across eight funds since its founding in 2000, including notable investments in Revolut, one of the UK's leading challenger banks, and Vivino, an app that helps wine enthusiasts find, rate, and catalog good wines, according to its website.

In November, Balderton said it has raised $400 million for its latest fund to invest in early-stage European startups. Balderton traces its roots to Benchmark Capital, one of Silicon Valley's most successful firms. In 2007, what was then called Benchmark Europe broke off from the US-based firm and renamed itself Balderton.

Yared will join a handful of Goldman alums, most notably Tim Bunting, who served as the bank's global head of equity capital markets and vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International before joining Balderton as a partner in 2007, according to its website.

Yared joined Goldman in 2006 and made partner in 2018. She was considered by colleagues to be a rising star.

The last six years of her career were spent in the firm's principal strategic investments unit, a small team housed in the securities division that made financial technology investments with the bank's own money. In that capacity, she led a team of more than 30 employees, spearheaded many of Goldman's early forays into cryptocurrency markets and oversaw more than $2 billion in investments.

Many of those stakes were among Goldman's most high-profile fintech investments. She worked closely on Goldman's investment in Tradeweb, the bond dealing platform that went public last year, and discovered Kensho, an artificial intelligence startup sold to S&P Global for $550 million in 2018, according to an interview she did last September with Le Commerce.

Earlier this year, she spoke to Business Insider about how she defines the word fintech.

"What we like to say to people is we were investing in fintech before it was named," Yared said. "Taking an exchange from the floor up to electronic was considered the leading edge of financial technology," she said, adding that her broad definition of the term "covers everything from consumer retail to capital markets. It covers investments in capital markets platforms. Payments. Tech-enabled lending. New banks. Neo banks, you might call them."

That definition will come in handy if she's asked to help out with Balderton's investment in Revolut. The VC firm led the seed round investment in the digital bank, according to PitchBook. Revolut was in talks as recently as October to raise another round of funding that could value it at between $5 billion and $10 billion.

Balderton partner Daniel Waterhouse sits on the company's board.