President Donald Trump signed a bill containing $900 billion in pandemic relief, the White House said, triggering the flow of aid to individuals and businesses and averting the risk of a partial government shutdown on Tuesday.
In addition to aid to stem the economic effects of the pandemic, the legislation Congress passed Monday also includes $1.4 trillion in government spending to fund federal agencies through the end of the fiscal year in September. The government had been operating on temporary spending authority that expires after the end of the day Monday.
Ben Malka joined Cota in 2019 as a Partner on the investment team, where he is focused on sourcing, evaluating, executing, and governance of venture investments. Prior to Cota, Ben was a General Partner at F-Prime Capital, a San Francisco-based financial technology and enterprise IT-focused venture capital fund. At F-Prime, he served as lead partner for a number of investments.
Since 1999, Ben has also served as a General Partner at North Hill Ventures, a financial technology focused venture capital fund. Previously, Ben was with The Boston Consulting Group, where he was the Project Lead for a number of clients across strategy development, acquisition strategy, new product evaluation, and operations improvement. He began his career at Bank of America as a Statistical Analyst.
Ben received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University and a MBA from the University of Chicago.
Murat Kilicoglu joined Cota Capital as a Principal in 2022 focusing on the evaluation and monitoring of private investments as well as designing and implementing value creation strategies across the broad Cota portfolio. Prior to Cota, Murat was a Vice President in the Investment Banking Division of Evercore focusing on mergers and acquisitions within the technology sector. Prior to Evercore, Murat was a Vice President at Credit Suisse in the Investment Banking Division focusing his time on strategic advisory and financing assignments for software and FinTech companies. Previously, Murat was an Investment Associate at TRPE Capital focusing on private equity and venture capital investments across the technology sector. Murat began his career at Roland Berger, where he worked as a strategy consultant to technology firms and private equity portfolio companies in the areas of corporate strategy, growth strategy, go-to-market strategy, commercial due diligence, and corporate restructuring. Murat received a B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bogazici University in Istanbul and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Chris Denver is a director at Stout. He has over 20 years of experience assisting domestic and international publicly traded and privately held companies with complex accounting and financial reporting issues, such as debt and equity issuances, share-based payment arrangements, purchase accounting, revenue recognition, earnings per share, and the adoption of new accounting standards.
The combined $2.3 trillion package was the product of intense negotiations, from which Trump was largely absent until he surprised lawmakers of both parties by demanding bigger stimulus payments for individuals after the bill was already passed.
Trump said in the statement announcing the signing that the GOP Senate had agreed to vote on increasing the $600 individual payments and two other, unrelated matters dealing with social media and his unfounded allegations of voter fraud.
His delay in signing it means those aid payments will likely be later than Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised and may cut a week from the supplemental unemployment benefits that were part of the package and scheduled to end in March.
The virus relief package will likely be the last major legislation signed by Trump, whose re-election hopes were dashed in large part due to his handling of the pandemic.
President-elect Joe Biden has said he will push for even more stimulus after taking office early next year, but it remains unclear whether Republicans in Congress would go along. Control of the Senate will be determined by the outcome of two runoff elections in Georgia on Jan 5.
Lawmakers approved the government funding and additional relief at the last possible moment before they were set to leave Washington for a year-end break. Business leaders have called on Congress to pass more stimulus for months, saying that restaurants, theaters, mom-and-pop stores and airlines were being decimated by closures and restrictions as Covid-19 cases spiked in the U.S.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a relief deal on Sunday after more than a week of frantic talks sparked by a bipartisan group of senators who drafted their own compromise proposal and urged their leaders to act. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, representing the administration, also was involved in the talks.
Trump surprised even his fellow Republicans on Tuesday by tweeting a video saying that he wanted Congress to increase the size of stimulus payments for individuals to $2,000, from the $600 in the bill Congress passed. He also complained about federal spending on foreign aid and international programs, even though those funds were allocated as part of the bipartisan appropriations process for funding the government.