Turning Bespoke Alts into Software
VP of Product at iCapital on streamlining alternative investment administration
The real prize in alternatives is shifting from product access to data control. Bespoke funds won because managers could customize terms, structures, fees, and reporting for each distributor or investor segment, but that also left the market running on one off spreadsheets, PDFs, email files, and custom mappings between administrators, tax providers, wealth platforms, and GPs. That fragmentation creates the opening for platforms that turn messy post trade operations into repeatable software.
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In practice, standardization matters at the boring workflow level. Subscription docs, KYC and AML checks, capital calls, distributions, and K-1 delivery all break when each fund and distributor names fields differently or sends files in different formats. iCapital built value by sitting in the middle and reconciling those mismatches for everyone else.
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This is why administrators are vulnerable even when they remain legally required. If a platform owns the investor profile, pre fills forms, routes data to the administrator, and catches missing documents before investors see them, the administrator keeps the regulated recordkeeping role but loses labor heavy work that historically justified fees.
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Comparable platforms show the same pattern. Carta, AngelList, and Juniper Square all try to turn fund operations from bespoke service work into software and recurring admin revenue. The winning product is not just a marketplace, it is the system where fund data gets entered once and reused across reporting, compliance, and investor servicing.
The market is heading toward fewer point to point integrations and more shared data rails. As advisors push alts to smaller accounts and higher volumes, firms that can make private funds behave more like software workflows will capture more of the economics, while administrators, auditors, and tax providers get pushed toward narrower, lower margin specialist roles.