This Week’s Vendor News

NEW & UPDATED PRODUCTS

Xpedition launches Metis, a suite of services and data insights solutions designed to harness the power of Microsoft Fabric’s analytics and AI. Xpedition feels that Metis is the first step to change data into a tangible asset. With Metis users can: 1 - Increase security, scalability and control by evolving from legacy systems, and migrating data workloads to Microsoft Azure Cloud. 2 - Harness business intelligence from your data analytics and gain the clarity and insight needed to gain an advantage. 3 - Adopt cloud Analytics and Rapid Insights. ↗

Allvue introduces Fund Administration Essentials. Allvue’s Fund Administration Essentials is a fully integrated, scalable technology suite designed for fund administrators to drive efficiency and enhance the investor experience. Fund Administration Essentials Delivers: 1 - Automated back-office workflows: streamline accounting and client onboarding with fully integrated tools, allowing you to focus on growth. 2 - Enhanced investor experience: Transparent fund reporting and communication tools support a seamless investor journey. 3 - Built to Scale: Tailored for emerging administrators, this solution grows alongside your business needs, allowing users to meet market demands.

Alkymi launches automated fund tracking for private markets, to help with transparency and reporting. Alkymi’s new fund tracking feature gives users insight into all incoming and expected investment data in one place, alongside data transformation and review workflows, which increases visibility and organization of the portfolio. With automated tracking integrated into data workflows, users can oversee data ingestion, transformation, and delivery in one central platform and makes sure all data is accounted for— enabling users to compare fund performance over time, assess and manage risk, and ensure accurate reporting. The Fund Tracker is fully customizable to client specifications, helping users monitor the fund data they need. ↗

Broadridge launches ClearFi to help companies comply with regulatory guidelines. ClearFi is a new suite of data products designed to change how companies comply with emerging digital asset regulations, including: 1 - providing an overview by consolidating on and off-chain data. 2 - offering insights into technology, tokenomics, governance, and purpose and 3 - updating information in near real-time for informed investment decisions. ↗

The Grata Deal Network is live. The Grata Deal Network gives users access to active mandates shared by sell-side advisors. Buyers can now see verified live deals and active mandates on the Grata platform. See deal previews before they go to market and get a head-start on the competition. Advisors can promote anonymous previews of live deals to a qualified, curated audience of investors and generate inbound interest for deals. How does it work? 1 - Advisors build deal profiles and share them with the Grata team. 2 - Deals go through a qualification process to make sure the data meets investment-grade standards. 3 - Buyers search live mandates to find opportunities that match their investment criteria. If something seems like a good fit, buyers can contact advisors directly. ↗

Affinity launches Deal Assist, its new conversational AI feature. Deal Assist uses artificial intelligence to help you pitch investments, prepare for meetings, and get answers to questions during diligence without having to sift through the notes, pitch decks, and data you’ve accumulated. Deal Assist streamlines company research and helps users make informed decisions. ↗

SEI launches SEIGPT, a new generative AI framework that enables the experimentation and implementation of generative AI applications. The company is currently leveraging SEIGPT-powered applications internally to enhance productivity, increase efficiency, and reduce costs in certain areas, such as client service, process automation, human resources, contract analysis, and code development. By leveraging advanced natural language processing capabilities on disparate data sources within SEI, SEIGPT aims to enhance client satisfaction, streamline workflows, and support content creation across various operational functions. SEIGPT provides advanced AI capabilities, including: 1 - efficiently searching across disparate data sources, 2 - answering user inquiries and summarizing information, 3 - generating personalized content and 4 - integrating with various applications and platforms. ↗

Salesforce announces the general availability of Agentforce. Agentforce is a new layer on the Salesforce Platform that enables companies to build and deploy AI agents that can take action across any business function. Agentforce uses advanced reasoning abilities to make decisions and take action, like resolving customer cases, qualifying sales leads, and optimizing marketing campaigns. Companies use Agentforce today to augment their employees, expand their workforce, and improve customer experiences. In addition, Agentforce includes out-of-the-box agents that are easy to customize and deploy with low-code or no-code tools. Agentforce Service Agent handles a wide range of tasks with pre-built topics and actions for customer support. ↗

Axial introduces the Axial League Tables Hub. This hub highlights the top lower middle market investment banks featured in Axial's quarterly ranking publication. Member information and deal data are included for each featured firm, providing insights into the investment banks and M&A advisors making an impact. Only active investment banks & M&A advisory firms on the Axial platform are eligible for league table rankings. Axial’s league table ranking methodology is driven by three factors: 1 - Client Quality: Representing clients that buyers actively seek, measured by buyer interest in deals. 2 - Buyer Targeting: Precision in selecting and approaching the right buyers. 3 - Process Effectiveness: Delivering outcomes at every stage from NDA signature to closure. ↗

MSCI introduces MSCI Wealth, a new set of wealth management solutions that can enhance investment decision-making. Seamlessly integrated with MSCI data and insights, MSCI Wealth enables investment teams, portfolio managers and financial advisors to deliver personalization at scale. What can users do with MSCI Wealth? 1 - portfolio construction, 2 - portfolio management and 3 - sales enablement. The featured product for MSCI Wealth is MSCI Wealth Manager (formerly known as Fabric), which allows for collaboration between investment teams and financial advisors to personalize client portfolios while aligning to house views through the proprietary MSCI Similarity Score. ↗

CAIS launches its Structured Investments Lifecycle Management Tool, which is designed for financial advisors who aim to make their business more efficient and proactive. With this new suite of tools, advisors can: 1- seamlessly track upcoming call and maturity events, 2 - customize the desired timeframe for tracking events in a calendar view and 3 - filter and analyze allocations for each product. ↗

DEAL ACTIVITY

Carta acquires Tactyc. Soon, Carta fund admin customers will be able to feed portfolio company financial data, cap table data and general ledger data into Tactyc’s planning and forecasting tools, allowing funds to make informed, real-time decisions on their fund. Over time, Carta will expand Tactyc’s existing product to cover management company budgeting and to cover more fund types outside of venture. Tactyc by Carta is available for existing Carta Fund Administration customers as an add- on, or for new customers looking to bundle Fund Administration together with Tactyc by Carta. It is not currently sold as a standalone product for new customers. ↗

iCapital acquires AltExchange to enhance data management capabilities. This acquisition enhances iCapital’s AI and ML-driven technologies, streamlines post-investment processes and improves decision-making for private markets participants. AltExchange, is an AI-driven technology firm that deals with alternative investment data aggregation, management, and reporting for financial advisors and asset managers. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. ↗

Factset to acquire Irwin. Founded in 2017 and based in Toronto, Irwin is a modern investor relationship management platform that streamlines investor relations by connecting people, data, and insights into one platform. This acquisition builds on the recent partnership that integrates Irwin’s investor relations CRM with the FactSet Workstation to equip IR professionals with a unified solution to manage investor engagement, conduct research, and streamline corporate access on a single platform. The acquisition is expected to close during FactSet’s first quarter fiscal 2025 and is not expected to have a material impact on FactSet’s fiscal 2025 results. ↗

Broadridge completes previously announced acquisition of Kyndryl’s Securities Industry Services platform. The SIS platform provides wealth management and capital markets software solutions to Canadian financial services firms. ↗

PARTNERSHIPS & INTEGRATIONS

S&P Global Market Intelligence announces new strategic fixed-income data partnership with MarketAxess. S&P's partnership with MarketAxess, the operator of an electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities, will result in increased transparency and efficiency for the fixed-income markets. Core to the partnership will be the integration of S&P Global Bond Reference Data into the MarketAxess suite of data products, and the inclusion of MarketAxess CP+ real-time pricing into S&P Global's Evaluated Bond Pricing. This is expected to result in more consistent pricing and greater efficiencies across the trade lifecycle including front, middle and back-office functions. The data integration is expected to start in early 2025 and will also enable the two companies to differentiate their existing product offerings and new solutions. ↗

Atominvest partners with DevCo Partners. DevCo Partners is a Nordic private equity firm based in Finland. DevCo is a long-term owner to medium-sized businesses, that focuses its resources on a select group of companies with revenues ranging from €50 million to €500 million. Atominvest is helping DevCo by delivering a modern experience to their LPs via its branded investor portal. ↗

Dealstack collaborating with Trill Impact to streamline the rollout of a management incentive program for one of their portfolio companies, making the process more efficient and fostering collaboration. Key outcomes of this partnership include: 1 - automated workflows enabled participation without the typical friction of fragmented processes, saving time and enhancing teamwork. 2 - Implementation was transparent, providing a smooth onboarding process. 3 - With manual tasks eliminated, Trill Impact can now engage participants and handle transactions (such as joiners, leavers, additional allocations) for the portfolio company with just a few clicks. ↗

Decimal Point Analytics partners with ClickUp to enhance task management and boost productivity. Decimal Point Analytics faced challenges with manual task tracking, limited visibility across teams, and inefficient resource allocation. To overcome these, DPA partnered with ClickUp, implementing custom project dashboards, automation tools, and real-time collaboration software. This transformation streamlined processes, enhanced communication, and optimized project workflows across the organization. DPA's partnership with ClickUp offers: 1 - Custom Ticket Management System: Streamlined ticket creation and routing across multiple channels for faster response times. 2 - Project Portfolio Health Monitoring: Real-time insights and alerts ensure proactive issue management and timely project delivery. 3 - Resource and Skillset Matrix: Automated skill-based task assignments improve resource allocation and development. 4 - Organization-Wide Fever Chart: Comprehensive project health visualization enables informed decision-making and risk management. 5 - Real-Time Offshore Collaboration: Tailored communication protocols maintain project momentum across time zones. ↗

GeoWealth partners with iCapital to enable BlackRock’s Custom Models featuring Private Assets in Unified Managed Accounts. iCapital's technology, in partnership with GeoWealth and BlackRock, is now powering a custom platform experience for registered investment advisors, which enables firms using GeoWealth to include private assets within unified managed accounts. The experience is available for eligible advisors accessing custom model portfolios provided by BlackRock while leveraging GeoWealth’s investment implementation platform. ↗

Nasdaq has been selected to join the ABA Partner Network as a Premier Partner giving ABA member banks access to Nasdaq Verafin and Nasdaq Governance Solutions. The collaboration will help ABA’s member banks access the latest technology to enhance innovation, boost collaboration, and improve operational efficiency. By reducing complexity, financial institutions will have more resources to invest in growth and innovation. Nasdaq Governance Solutions will also offer tools designed to help public and private banks establish healthy best practice governance frameworks, ensure compliance to meet the evolving regulatory landscape and help facilitate board evaluations and onboarding. Additionally, the Nasdaq suite will help ABA bank boards manage increasing demands from stakeholders and enhance overall governance practices. ↗

The global sustainability consultancy firm SLR and Position Green have entered into a new partnership. Through this partnership, SLR can offer their users software support for sustainability reporting and strategic sustainability work. Additionally, SLR will be able to offer their clients Position Green’s software for ESG Reporting and Data Management, which complements their strategic consultancy services. Under this partnership, SLR will support Position Green clients with the practical steps of their sustainability journeys, including ESG strategies, decarbonization plans, natural capital tactics and mandatory reporting. ↗

Blackrock announces that with the recent launch of eFront Provider, Apex Group is the first client to leverage the new solution. eFront Provider is responsible for digitizing manual tasks and enhancing transparency across fund administration for Apex Group. ↗

Dynamo welcomes 747 Capital as a new client. 747 Capital is a private equity firm specializing in the small-cap buyout market. 747 Capital selected Dynamo as its new CRM and Investor Relations platform following a selection process where Dynamo emerged as the preferred choice, due to its feature set and configurability. 747 selected Dynamo for its out-of-the-box functionality, built to meet the specific needs of private equity firms. The team at 747 Capital was swayed by positive references and the seamless integration offered by Dynamo, which aligned with 747's strategic requirements. ↗

3EDGE Asset Management selects SEI to launch ETFs. 3EDGE Asset Management selected SEI's Advisors’ Inner Circle Fund series trust as its operational platform to launch four new ETFs, which include: 3EDGE Dynamic Fixed Income ETF, 3EDGE Dynamic Hard Assets ETF, 3EDGE Dynamic International Equity ETF and 3EDGE Dynamic U.S. Equity ETF. ↗

Seneschal selects LemonEdge as its core fund accounting technology. Seneschal, the specialist private equity and real estate / real assets fund administrator, has selected LemonEdge to build its back-office accounting operations. Seneschal was looking for a modern accounting system where all the usual client complexities could be handled in one technology solution. With a founding team with knowledge of the legacy systems, Seneschal chose LemonEdge to become its core technology partner. ↗

OFFICE & PERSONNEL

FNEX appoints Jonathan Martin as its new Head of Marketplace. Martin has more than 18 years of experience spanning investment management, capital raising, and portfolio strategy. His background includes founding and managing a private equity fund, overseeing an alternative investment practice, and providing tailored financial advisory services to a wide range of clients. Prior to joining FNEX, Martin was the Regional Director, Alternative Investments at MVRK Capital. ↗

The ROYC Group welcomes Jesper Roslund as its new Senior Client Director. Roslund brings previous experience in fund structuring, fund operations, and private market investments to his new role. Roslund has been in the alternative assets space for more than 20 years, having previously worked at Evli and SEB, covering international fund structuring, life cycle management and institutional and private wealth sales. ↗

SimCorp appoints Mourad Essofi as new Managing Director for Middle East and Africa. Essofi, the new Managing Director, Head of Middle East and Africa, will be responsible for maintaining SimCorp’s growth momentum in the region. Essofi joined SimCorp following its merger with Axioma in January 2024 as Head of Axioma Sales EMEA, focusing on the suite of analytics tools for portfolio construction and risk management. Prior to joining SimCorp, he spent nine years in various leadership roles at Axioma. Before that, Essofi joined SimCorp following its merger with Axioma in January 2024 as Head of Axioma Sales EMEA, focusing on the suite of analytics tools for portfolio construction and risk management. Prior to joining SimCorp, Mourad spent nine years in various leadership roles at Axioma. Before that, he worked at Finastra and CDG Capital. ↗

Affinity is now ISO 27701 certified. This certification is the global standard for managing and protecting personal data. This certification strengthens Affinity's commitment to safeguarding personal data, ensuring compliance with global privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. ↗

IQ-EQ granted licence to offer corporate services in and from the Abu Dhabi Global Market. This marks the latest step in the firm’s strategic expansion and service offering in the Middle East, following the opening of its Abu Dhabi office and the receipt of its licence for fund services in the ADGM in 2023. With its fund and new corporate services licences obtained from the ADGM’s Registration Authority, IQ-EQ is now equipped to service fund and asset managers and corporate communities in the Middle East market. ↗

VENDOR RESEARCH & WHITEPAPERS

Acuity Knowledge Partners has a new blog, "Navigating the key challenges in marketing material compliance". In this blog, Acuity examines six obstacles that clients encounter while trying to comply with marketing materials and what it can do to help. ↗

AWARDS

The winners of the 2024 Buy-Side Technology Awards have been announced.

Winners from our Vendor Profiles database include:

Best overall buy-side product for 2024 - Factset
Best buy-side client reporting platform – FactSet
Best buy-side compliance product (regulatory reporting) – S&P Global Market Intelligence Cappitech
Best buy-side compliance product (trading) – Bloomberg
Best buy-side EMS – Bloomberg
Best buy-side managed data service – S&P Global Market Intelligence
Best buy-side IBOR (investment book of record) platform – SimCorp
Best buy-side performance measurement and attribution product – FactSet
Best buy-side risk management product – Bloomberg
Best cloud-based solution – Canoe Intelligence
Best ESG data provider to the buy side – Fusion by JP Morgan
Best integrated back-office platform – Arcesium
Best integrated front-office platform – Bloomberg
Best portfolio accounting platform – SS&C Advent
Best overall buy-side technology provider, 2024 – Bloomberg

Congratulations to all the Winners! ↗