A highly concentrated fund run by physician-turned-investor Dev Kantesaria, built around a handful of "toll-booth" businesses.
Life story
Dev Kantesaria is a physician by training: he graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Medical School. He says he has loved equities since he was eight years old. Little is publicly known about his birth year, family or childhood.
How they got started
Kantesaria began his career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. He then spent many years in venture capital: as a principal at TL Ventures and later a general partner at Devon Park Bio Ventures. Across two funds he invested hundreds of millions of dollars in drug-development biotech startups and served on many company boards.
Venture taught him that startups carry many risks (regulatory, patent, management) and that outcomes depend heavily on luck. Wanting to be right "nine out of ten" times, he moved to public equities and founded Valley Forge Capital Management in 2007. By 2024 the fund managed more than $4 billion.
Investment style
Kantesaria describes himself as a follower of the Buffett–Munger approach. He looks for "compounding machines": businesses with pricing power, predictable results and steady share buybacks. His key question is what a company will be doing over the next ten years.
The portfolio is extremely concentrated — just a handful of companies. He avoids capital-intensive, highly competitive, unproven or transitioning businesses. In a 2024 interview he noted that he owned none of the Big Tech giants.
Best decisions
FICO
Credit-scoring company FICO has long been one of the fund's largest holdings; a late-2024 podcast noted it was the top position in the latest 13F and had more than doubled over the prior year.
"Quality will be prized again"
During the 2022 bear market Kantesaria argued that quality, predictable businesses would come back into favor, and the following years bore that out. Ratings agencies such as S&P Global are typical of his ideas.
Biggest mistakes
Limited public information
We could not find detailed public accounts of specific mistakes Kantesaria has acknowledged. The general risk is concentration: trouble at one or two holdings has an outsized effect on the whole portfolio.
Today
In 2024–2025 Kantesaria continues to run the fund, with assets reported in the $4–5 billion range. He speaks regularly about his approach on podcasts and at university events.
What to learn from following the portfolio
- The portfolio holds only a few companies and changes rarely — a new position is uncommon and therefore worth attention.
- It is a useful case study in what a "quality business" looks like: pricing power, low capital needs, predictable earnings.
- Ratings agencies and payment or credit-infrastructure companies need separate halal scrutiny, as their business models may be tied to interest and debt. Check each position's halal status in the Portfolio tab.
- 13F filings arrive 45 days late and show only long US equity positions; copying a concentrated portfolio also means copying its concentration risk.
An introduction based on public sources — not investment advice. Spotted an error? Let us know.