Principal, Business Development

Palm Venture Studios is seeking a highly strategic, relationship-driven Principal to drive and scale the firm’s deal origination efforts. This role sits at the intersection of business development, ecosystem building, and investment strategy, with a mandate to generate high-quality deal flow through trust-based relationship building and outbound 

You’ll own this high-velocity origination function with a focus on engaging with strategic partners, fielding new investment opportunities, assessing deal quality, presenting these to the investment team, and engaging in due diligence. Our referral partners include:

• Venture debt lenders and banks
• Restructuring firms, assignees and trustees
• Independent sponsors
• Turnaround advisors
• Venture capital firms
• Startup-focused law firms and service providers
• Founder communities 

You’ll act as an ambassador for Palm, being a value-add partner to our ecosystem and ensuring we’re top-of-mind and highly responsive when opportunities emerge. You'll:

• Further build out and own a differentiated, high-functioning deal flow engine
• Develop and deepen high-value referral networks across key ecosystems
• Translate relationships into actionable, high-quality investment opportunities
• Partner closely with the investment team to influence pipeline strategy and prioritization
• Keen eye for early vetting to ensure energy is spent on the highest caliber investment opportunities

You will operate as a key external face of the firm, owning critical sourcing channels and shaping how Palm shows up across the venture, restructuring, entrepreneurial and capital markets ecosystem. You’ll work closely with senior leadership and have the opportunity to deepen your involvement throughout the investment lifecycle as you grow with the firm.

Key Responsibilities

Ecosystem & Relationship Leadership

• Maintain and expand Palm’s network across venture capital, venture debt, restructuring, independent sponsors, and startup ecosystems
• Develop senior-level, trust-based relationships with key intermediaries and decision-makers
• Establish Palm as a value-add, responsive, and sought-after partner in complex situations
• Create structured, repeatable engagement strategies to stay consistently top-of-mind

Deal Origination & Pipeline Development

• Source and curate high-quality opportunities aligned with Palm’s investment strategy through high-volume outbound engagement
• Act as a first touchpoint for inbound opportunities, qualifying, shaping, and advancing them
• Identify non-obvious or off-market situations through pattern recognition and network insights
• Drive warm introductions and manage early-stage relationship dynamics between counterparties and the investment team

Strategic Positioning & Market Intelligence

• Continuously map the ecosystem to identify emerging intermediaries, trends, and opportunity pockets
• Provide insight to the investment team on where and how to focus sourcing efforts
• Collaborate with marketing, talent, and leadership to draft ongoing outbound communications channels and messaging to the network and market

Systems & Origination Infrastructure

• Build and refine scalable systems for relationship management, pipeline tracking, and outreach effectiveness that increase consistency and quality of deal flow over time
• Maintain CRM and data to generate insights and improve sourcing strategy
• Provide actionable weekly reports on activity

Requirements

• 4+ years in business development in private equity, investing, capital markets, or a highly network-driven role on a strong sourcing team
• Proven track record of sourcing investment opportunities through relationship-driven efforts, ideally in distressed or turnaround investment environments
• Quality existing network within one or more of the following: venture capital, venture debt, restructuring, independent sponsors, or startup services ecosystems
• Experience operating in environments where ambiguity, autonomy, and pace are high

• Exceptional relationship-builder with credibility among senior professionals
• Strong commercial instincts, able to quickly assess opportunity quality and relevance
• High agency and ownership mindset; operates as a “builder,” not just an executor
• Skilled communicator who can represent the firm with nuance and sophistication
• Systems thinker who can translate relationship activity into scalable processes
• Naturally curious and network-oriented; energized by uncovering opportunities
• Balances polish with persistence, comfortable with both executive conversations and high-volume outreach when needed
• Thinks in terms of long-term relationship equity, not just transactional wins
• Comfortable influencing without authority and operating cross-functionally with investment teams