Natalie H Hwang

Natalie Hwang is the Founding Managing Partner of Apeira Capital Advisors, a New York-based investment and advisory firm she launched in 2020 after leaving Simon Property Group’s venture arm. Apeira describes its strategy as investing dynamically in leading late-stage to pre-IPO private technology companies, and its fund as focused on long-short investing in private, technology-forward companies.

Before Apeira, Hwang was Managing Director and Head of Simon Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of Simon Property Group. She joined Simon in August 2015, helped form Simon Ventures, and later became sole head of the unit. At Simon Ventures she led investments across retail technology, consumer commerce, marketplaces, and distribution platforms, including Foursquare, FabFitFun, Grailed, MeUndies, Verishop, Bird, Bustle Digital Group, and Brud.

Earlier in her career, Hwang worked at The Blackstone Group, where she was involved with the firm’s seeding platform for emerging alternative asset management businesses. Before moving into finance and asset management, she was an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. She earned a B.A. in Public Policy Studies and Economics from Duke University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

She was named to Global Corporate Venturing’s Rising Stars list in 2016 and Powerlist 100 in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

• Apeira focuses on late-stage to pre-IPO private technology companies and uses a non-traditional private-markets strategy that can include synthetic long and short exposure. Hwang told AlphaWeek: “We are a long-biased fund but can leverage derivative transactions to synthetically invest in opportunities that may allow us to benefit from both falling as well as rising prices.”
• Apeira’s public site says it manages Apeira Capital Fund I LP, “a growth equity and tactical opportunities fund focused on long-short investing in private, technology-forward companies.”
• Hwang looks for fundamentally sound companies with tangible performance, pricing power, and resilience through volatility. In her AlphaWeek interview, she said Apeira focuses on “high quality companies that have demonstrated tangible performance.”
• Sector emphasis has shifted from Simon Ventures’ retail and commerce mandate toward broader private technology and infrastructure themes. Public Apeira materials and related pages emphasize disruptive distribution technology, technology infrastructure, compute, data, and global supply chains.
• In AI, Hwang’s recent public commentary frames the opportunity around infrastructure economics rather than model hype: she argues that deployment efficiency, power availability, cost per token, and infrastructure density are becoming core sources of advantage.
• At Simon Ventures, her thesis emphasized capital-efficient retail and commerce companies that could scale rapidly while benefiting from Simon Property Group’s real estate, brand, distribution, and network assets.