Irakli Menabde

Irakli Menabde is a finance and asset-management professional best known for his role as Managing Director of Energy and Infrastructure Investments at the Georgian Co-Investment Fund (GCF) from 2013 to 2017. GCF is an approximately US$6 billion private investment fund established in 2013 to channel private-equity capital into Georgia's fastest-growing sectors — energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, hospitality/real estate, and agriculture/logistics. During Menabde's tenure the fund committed to several of the largest energy projects in the region, particularly large-scale hydropower.

Before GCF, Menabde built a decade-plus career across global finance. He was Head of Equity Investments at the I2BF Technology Fund (c. 2008–2010), the cleantech-focused investor founded by Ilya Golubovich, where he co-authored commentary on the emergence of clean technology as a high-growth global asset class. He also held roles connected to Shell and Refco, and later worked as a portfolio manager at M2 Capital Partners. His profile reflects a focus on energy, commodities, and infrastructure investing rather than early-stage venture.

On education, Menabde holds two Master of Science degrees — one in Energy, Trade and Finance from Cass Business School (City, University of London) and one in Finance and Strategic Management from Copenhagen Business School — and pursued an EMBA at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. After his GCF years he relocated to London, where sources list him in senior operating roles (COO / co-CEO) at the UK property-data firm REalyse.

(One caution: there are at least two professionals named "Irakli Menabde" in Georgian sources — a separate person works in the iGaming sector at Orbital Gaming in Tbilisi. The finance/energy-investment profile described here is the one consistent with the gcfund.ge email and the GCF managing-director record.)

• Stage / type: Institutional private equity and project/infrastructure finance through GCF — large, asset-backed deals, not seed or angel checks.
• Check size: GCF investments during his period were very large; the fund's energy/infrastructure commitments ran from roughly US$100 million to US$700+ million per project (e.g., a US$113M and a US$330M hydropower commitment, and a US$723M cascade project). Personal angel check size is unverified.
• Sectors: Energy and infrastructure first (hydropower/renewables), plus GCF's wider mandate in manufacturing, tourism/real estate, and agriculture; earlier, cleantech/technology equity at I2BF.
• What makes him say yes: Projects with clear contribution to Georgia's economic development, hard-asset backing, and bankable returns — consistent with GCF's co-investment model that pairs the fund's capital with international strategic partners.
• In his I2BF-era commentary he framed the thesis that *"technologies once considered uneconomic have emerged from obscurity to become one of the fastest-growing global industries"* — a growth-into-mainstream view of clean technology.