Alex Urdea

Alex Urdea is a New York–based finance professional with more than 20 years of experience spanning quantitative risk, structured credit, and venture-style lending. He earned a BSE in Financial Engineering from Princeton University in 2002 (with a certificate in Engineering Management Systems) and holds the CFA, FRM, and CMT designations. He began his career in credit and quantitative analysis at Merrill Lynch and at Deutsche Bank's credit derivatives desk (from around 2003), then moved to Stanfield Capital Partners, where he managed risk for the firm's hedge funds and structured products and built a proprietary arbitrage model for its synthetic CDOs.

In July 2007 he helped spin Solus Alternative Asset Management out of Stanfield, joining as a Managing Director and serving as Director of Risk and Quantitative Strategy from the firm's inception. Outside of his investing roles, he served as Board Chairman of the CFA Society of New York (a ~10,000-member organization) until 2017.

Around 2018 Urdea co-founded Upper90 Capital Management, where he served as Chief Investment Officer. Upper90 pioneered a "founder-friendly" model that pairs flexible credit with equity for top disruptors in e-commerce, enterprise, and fintech, backed by a network of 300+ business builders and limited partners. Urdea sat on the board of Thrasio and served as a board director/observer across numerous Upper90 portfolio companies in e-commerce, supply chain, and fintech.

More recently, Urdea co-founded and is Managing Partner (and CIO) of Deep Ocean Partners, an opportunistic private-credit firm launched in 2023 that offers custom financing—lines of credit, term loans, and receivables factoring—to small and mid-sized businesses in consumer brands, SaaS, B2B asset operators, and fintech originators. He also serves as Chief Credit Officer at Founderpath and as a Venture Partner at Polymath Ventures. He is of Romanian heritage and is active with the Romanian United Fund.

• Backs founder-led, data-rich companies in "nascent and growing industries being created by technology and data," providing capital solutions tailored to the business rather than off-the-shelf terms.
• Specializes in flexible, often non-dilutive credit paired with equity—the Upper90 model of "founder-friendly, flexible capital solutions" designed to minimize dilution while funding growth.
• Sector conviction in e-commerce, supply chain, fintech, enterprise/SaaS, and consumer brands, plus asset-backed and infrastructure plays (e.g., energy/compute).
• Emphasizes adding strategic value beyond capital—operating experience plus advice from an engaged network of advisors and LPs.
• At Deep Ocean, targets small and mid-sized businesses with custom credit (lines of credit, term loans, receivables factoring), blending fintech-style underwriting with institutional private credit.