Raj Sharma

Raj Sharma is a Senior Analyst in the Discovery Group at B. Riley Securities, focusing on Education Services/EdTech companies and select special situations in other industries such as Fintech/Payment Processors, Industrial Processes and Farming/Agtech. He has 25 years of experience in equity research and analysis, both on the buyside and sellside.

Mr. Sharma employs a fundamental approach to investing in equities. Prior to B. Riley Securities, he was a Portfolio Manager and Senior Analyst at Polestar Capital LLC, a value-driven, contrarian investment fund and research boutique, which he founded in May 2005. At Polestar, managing hedge fund and managed accounts, he conducted special-sits fundamental analysis to identify and invest in solid but temporarily dislocated businesses at cheap prices.

Prior to Polestar, he was a Managing Director, Equity Research, at Merriman, Curhan, Ford & Co., a boutique investment bank in San Francisco where he covered specialty growth companies and special situations. Prior to Merriman, he was a Vice President at Onyx Partners, Inc., an investment banking and buyout boutique analyzing equity and mezzanine debt investments in companies in various industries in the U.S. Mr. Sharma was responsible for due diligence, financial analysis and operational nurturing and turnaround management of portfolio companies. Prior to Onyx Partners, Inc., he was a senior analyst at Alpha Investment Management, Inc., a $100 million macro hedge fund and at Strome Susskind and Company ("Strome"), a $1 billion macro hedge fund where he was responsible for management of equity investments in the U.S., and in emerging markets around the globe.

Mr. Sharma has an MBA in Finance from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and a BS in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at New Delhi, India.