Tom Bratkovich

Tom Bratkovich is an investment professional with a career spanning direct venture investing, institutional alternative-investment advisory, and family-office portfolio management. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering (cum laude) from UCLA, an M.S. in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering from MIT, and an MBA (with Distinction) from Harvard Business School (roughly 1999–2001). Earlier in his career he served as CFO for a prominent nonprofit and as a Vice President of Investments at a Fortune 100 family office, and worked as an early-stage venture capitalist at a top-ten West Coast VC firm.

In June 2014, Bratkovich joined Hycroft, LLC — a specialty investment bank serving exclusively the alternative-investments market — as a Managing Director. He led Hycroft's San Francisco office, covering the US West Coast and select Asia-Pacific markets, where he ran the firm's limited-partner advisory services, parts of its transactional practice, and the distribution of primary and secondary offerings. It is from this period that his [hidden] address originates. Before Hycroft he was a Director at LP Capital Advisors, an alternative-investment advisory firm, advising major institutional investors including CalPERS, CalSTRS, and NY Common, and he also spent time at Longview Investment Partners.

Bratkovich later held a senior role at Wilshire Associates, responsible for business development, new-product launches, and deal sourcing for a ~$30 billion AUM fund-of-funds platform that allocated roughly $2 billion per year to private equity, private credit, and private real assets, while building a co-investment platform for several family offices. Today he is Chief Investment Officer at DCA Family Office (affiliated with DCA Partners), where he oversees investment strategy, portfolio construction, deal sourcing, and underwriting for the firm's ultra-high-net-worth family-office clients.

Alongside his institutional roles, Bratkovich is an active angel/early-stage investor. He is a member of San Diego-based NuFund Venture Group (formerly Tech Coast Angels – San Diego), one of the largest and longest-running angel groups in the US, and has been involved in the Angel Capital Association's policy initiatives, including meetings with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce.

• Angel / seed: Invests personally in early-stage technology and life-science companies through the NuFund Venture Group angel network, which favors software, hardware, cleantech, mobile, biotech, medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health.
• Institutional / family office: Emphasizes a deliberate shift toward private markets as a core (not satellite) allocation. He states UHNW investors increasingly seek "exposure to private equity, private credit, real estate, hospitality, infrastructure, and niche alternatives where return drivers are more controllable."
• "Tax alpha": A defining feature of DCA's approach is intentional use of tax structures — Bratkovich cites "1031 exchanges, Opportunity Zones, QSBS, and bonus depreciation, to generate what we think of as 'tax alpha.'"
• Risk reallocation over retreat: Rather than pulling back wholesale, he describes "reducing reliance on public market volatility and reallocating toward private credit for income and capital preservation, real assets for inflation protection."
• Niche real assets: Actively favors aircraft leasing ("transportation infrastructure with limited correlation… and predictable income streams"), manufactured housing ("one of the most durable segments within residential real assets"), and agricultural permanent crops ("exposure to food demand, water-constrained supply, and land appreciation").