Built by three undergraduates learning the job by doing it
A founder-directed long-short equity partnership, run by the people whose capital is actually in it.
Carolina Strategic Equities launched with twenty-five thousand dollars in combined founder capital, split evenly between three undergraduate students who wanted real experience managing money as a team, rather than studying how it is done secondhand. Every rule the fund runs on today, from position limits to how a trade gets approved, was written before the first dollar was invested.
The founders set one standard alongside the financial one: outperform the S&P 500 without losing sight of acting responsibly. It's written into the fund's original business plan, and it still shapes how a position gets chosen, not just whether it makes money.
A fallen species standing for what stability once looked like
The American chestnut once made up roughly a quarter of the hardwood canopy across the eastern United States — the tallest, fastest-growing tree in an old-growth forest built to last centuries.
An imported blight reached New York in 1904 and, within about forty years, killed billions of them. What had been a keystone species became an understory shrub, and the forest it anchored never fully recovered.
We use it as our mark because we believe in environmentalism — the chestnut is a reminder of what a stable natural system looked like before it was lost, and of what's worth protecting in the ones still standing.
Governed by vote not hierarchy
CSE is a North Carolina LLC, funded entirely by its founders. Every economic owner is also an investment decision-maker, and every decision-maker sits on the Investment Committee.
Kaiden Lech
One vote on the Investment Committee. Shares responsibility for portfolio construction, risk oversight, and trade execution.
Grant Faraci
One vote on the Investment Committee. Shares responsibility for research, risk oversight, and fund direction.
Sawyer Kribbs
One vote on the Investment Committee. Shares responsibility for sector research and position review.
Economic ownership and voting authority are kept separate. Each founder's stake is set by their Capital Account — but on the Investment Committee, every managing member carries exactly one vote, regardless of contribution size.
Any founder may propose a trade. Proposals circulate for 24 hours, then require a two-thirds committee vote to execute. The same threshold applies to any non-stop-loss exit.
Long and short equities sized by rule
Position limits, exposure ranges, and valuation method are fixed in advance — conviction is expressed inside limits the Committee already agreed to.
Comparables
Benchmarks P/E, EV/EBITDA, and P/S against direct peers.
DCF
Used where cash flows are predictable enough to model forward.
Precedent deals
Applied where a name is a plausible acquisition target.
Proposal
Thesis, valuation, price target, size. Shorts add a stop-loss and borrow cost.
Circulation
Sent to the full committee for 24 hours before a vote, unless expedited.
Vote
Two-thirds majority required to approve.
Execution
Logged, then routed through the single fund brokerage account.
Get in touch
CSE is founder-directed and does not currently accept outside capital.
General inquiries
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Before you reach out
CSE operates exclusively on founder capital and has not registered any offer or sale of membership interests. Nothing on this site is an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy, any security.