Apollo, BlackRock, WestCap, BNY Mellon, KKR, Blackstone, Carlyle, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and UBS have joined in order to leverage distributed ledger technology for next-generation alternative processing and digital solutions.
iCapital anticipates additional prominent partners to join the initiative to develop a technology model streamlining data sharing.
iCapital, a global fintech platform for alternative investing in the asset and wealth management industries, has announced a consortium with the goal of developing a distributed ledger-based solution for the alternative investment ecosystem. This group will lead an industry-wide initiative in order to drive operational efficiency, security, and convenience. The consortium includes leading asset managers, service providers, and wealth managers such as Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Carlyle, KKR, BNY Mellon, State Street, Morgan Stanley, WestCap, and UBS. These partners will serve to make it easier to acquire and service alternative assets.
Says Lawrence Calcano, Chairman, and CEO of iCapital:
“Leadership of this initiative, which brings together many of the most influential market participants to leverage emerging technology, is well-aligned with iCapital’s mission. We are completely committed to making investing in and owning alternative investments easier for advisors and their high-net-worth investors.”
According to iCapital, creating a shared and auditable record for each alternative investment will serve to augment the efficiency of investment creation, management, and exit processes, which will eliminate the need for each party to intake data, reconcile it to their records, and share new data versions. The model is also intended to improve visibility throughout the process and across the value chain.
Head of Global Alternative Investment Solutions, Jerry Pascucci mentioned:
”We see the potential distributed ledger technology has to significantly improve both efficiency and security across the alternatives industry. We are excited to be working with this group on a distributed ledger initiative that will transform the service we can offer our clients.”
Added Todd Myers, the Senior Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Private Wealth Solutions at Blackstone:
“With this next generation of technology, we are committed to optimizing the entire alternative investing experience so that advisors and their clients can meet their needs with efficiency and ease. We are proud to join this group of asset and wealth management leaders in this imperative industry effort.”
While the members of the consortium Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, BNY Mellon, Carlyle, KKR, Morgan Stanley, State Street, UBS, and WestCap are the first to join iCapital in developing and testing blockchain-based solutions, iCapital does foresee additional, prominent alternative industry participants joining this initiative to strengthen functionality for the world’s global-alternative investment network.
“The value in a private, permissioned, distributed ledger solution is that it creates one single golden source of data – eliminating the need for multiple reconciliations, allowing all the parties in a transaction to read from and write to the same record. This synchronized approach enhances reliability, security, and efficiency. It is the latest technical innovation that we are developing to enhance our platform capabilities, and the alternative investment ecosystem more broadly, for the benefit of all participants.” mentioned Tom Fortin, Chief Information Officer of iCapital.
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Founded in 2013 in NYC, iCapital Networks operates a platform designed to offer access to high-net-worth individual capital for private equity and other alternative investment fund managers that traditionally source capital from institutional investors.
The platform offers RIAs, wealth managers, private banks, and their accredited clients a suite of tools to discover, evaluate and transact with low investment minimums. This allows managers to source capital from an area that was previously not economically viable via the traditional roadshow and presentation method typically utilized for an institutional investor-based fundraising effort. As of January 31, 2022, iCapital services $112 billion in global client assets, of which more than $25 billion are from international investors (non-US Domestic), across more than 940 funds. iCapital is headquartered in NYC and has offices in Zurich, London, Lisbon, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Toronto.
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