Nima Taghavi

Nima Taghavi is the Founder & CEO of Group 206, a private investment firm created in 2013. Taghavi’s entrepreneurial journey began at a young age. Taghavi immigrated to the US from Iran when he was 9 years old, and by his early teen years, was selling video games at the Swap Meet to supplement his family’s income. This early start helped Taghavi develop a passion for business. Taghavi turned his early entrepreneurial experience into successfully founding and exiting several enterprises throughout his career, including video game distributor SVG Distribution and video game publisher Crave Entertainment. Both SVG and Crave became market leaders and, under Crave Entertainment Group (CEG) and were sold to The Handleman Company (NYSE: HDL) in 2005. With revenues nearing $300M, CEG was the largest privately held company in the video game industry at the time. Nima was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist in 1998, 2000, and 2004. Taghavi was an original investor and co-founder of Solutions 2 GO (Canada), which grew from its inception in 2004 to become the largest video game distributor in North America by 2008. To optimize his investment in Solutions 2 GO (Canada), Taghavi founded its sister company Solutions 2 GO LLC (U.S.) in 2009, a video game distribution company specializing in both the brick and mortar and e-commerce retail channels. After reaching well over $1B in combined revenue, Taghavi sold his collective interests in 2017. As a longtime owner-user and investor in industrial real estate, Taghavi co-founded investment management firm BKM Capital Partners in 2013. Soon after, Taghavi was joined by John Mack (former CEO & Chairman at Morgan Stanley) as an investor, business partner, and board advisor. Throughout Taghavi’s tenure as Chairman, BKM grew to nearly $2 billion in assets under management with more than 20 institutional investor partners. In 2020, Taghavi and Mack sold their collective ownership in BKM. In 2018, Taghavi co-founded VoltEdge, a consumer brand company specializing in the design, development, and manufacturing of high-performance video game accessories sold through national brick & mortar and e-commerce retailers. In 2020, VoltEdge was acquired by Mexico-based GameXpress. Taghavi established The Nima Taghavi Foundation in 2005 to support a variety of disadvantaged children’s charities and other causes. Additionally, Taghavi has been a member of the Board of Directors for Eastern Congo Initiative (founded by Ben Affleck) since 2015 and a member of the Board of Directors for The Clinton Foundation since 2018.