LOS ANGELES—Peer-to-peer lending platform AssetAvenue has hired Varun Pathria as chief investment officer. Pathria joins the firm from Colony Capital, where he served as SVP. Pathria will be based in the firm's Los Angeles office.

According to Pathria, he found the position at AssetAvenue by chance. “I wasn't really looking. I had a great 11 years at Colony; it was an incredible experience and all of the guys are great over there,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “Kevin Arrabaca [AssetAvenue president], who is a co-founder here, worked at Colony for many years. I have the upmost respect for him as an individual and as a brain. He has an incredible work ethic. We were catching up over lunch, and started talking about the company, and I thought it was pretty interesting. I've always had an entrepreneurial bug, and I do some angel investing. At the time, they were close to closing the series A, and that led into a bigger discussion with him about the company. Once they closed the series A, it was the perfect time to take it to the next level.”

At Colony, Pathria was responsible for closing more than $20 billion in transactions, which were focused on opportunistic equity acquisitions and high-yield debt originations and acquisitions. Among these transactions are some high-profile Colony investments, including Fairmont Hotels, William Lyon Homes, and the Jameson hotel portfolio. Pathria holds a B.A. in economics from UCLA, a JD in corporate law from UCLA and an MBA from USC.  

Pathria will leverage this notable experience to help AssetAvenue continue to grow. “There is a lot to do. My expectation is to do a little bit of everything, but the primary focus of my time is going to be on all things real estate,” he says. “I am going to be continuing to get more deals on the platform; continuing to get more capital to the platform; and really focusing on the special sauce in between, which is using the technology and the data to really drive institutional-quality underwriting and an efficient closing process in this space.”

In a recent interview after securing the series-A funding, David Manshoory, Asset Avenue CEO, told GlobeSt.com that one of his main goals was to establish a top-tier team. According to Pathria, that team is what helped to attract him to the budding firm. “This firm has some really, really high quality talent, and that is really what impressed me the most,” he says. “I think that is what is exciting for us and for the overall industry.”