NEW YORK — (NEWSWIRE) — iCapital Network, the leading financial technology platform setting the industry standard for access and efficiency in alternative investing, today announced momentous growth across key metrics during 2019. Over the course of the year, the company forged significant partnerships across the industry and solidified its position as the platform of choice for independently registered investment advisors, culminating in a more than 400% increase in assets serviced by the iCapital platform. Additionally, iCapital continued to expand its leadership team and deepen its industry education efforts.
As of December 31, 2019, iCapital services more than $46.6 billion in invested capital across approximately 470 funds, 100,000 underlying accounts, and 55 white label partners. iCapital increased assets serviced by its platform more than five-fold since year-end 2018, including $12.1 billion in organic platform growth coupled with strategic partnership acquisitions. In 2019, iCapital closed its acquisition of Bank of America’s alternative investment feeder fund operations and solidified a strategic relationship with Morgan Stanley to oversee ongoing operations and administration functions of the firm’s alternative investment feeder fund assets.
“2019 was a breakout year for iCapital, positioning us to fundamentally change the industry,” said Lawrence Calcano, Chief Executive Officer of iCapital Network. “iCapital has evolved from connecting two end points in the alternative investing lifecycle – the buyer and the seller – to establishing and automating the entire ecosystem. Our team is working diligently to enhance the value that we can deliver to our clients across the industry, and we are excited to further evolve and scale in the next decade.”
New Partner Relationships
Throughout 2019, iCapital further solidified its position as the industry’s alternative investment technology leader by servicing independent advisors, wirehouses, and private banks through its sophisticated technology offering.
In line with its mission to bring increased ease and efficiency into the alternative investing process for advisors across the ecosystem, iCapital developed new partnerships to bring its white label technology solution to investment advisors across distribution channels, bringing them a best-in-class experience for fund marketing and service. In 2019, iCapital penned partner agreements with IEQ Capital, Janney Montgomery Scott, Keebeck Wealth Management, Personal Capital, United Capital, First Republic, and SunTrust.
Beyond the firm’s end-to-end solution for advisors and wealth management firms, many of the industry’s most prominent general partners and fund distributors have selected iCapital’s technology for alternative fund marketing and service. Among fund managers that partnered with iCapital in 2019 are CIM Group, PIMCO, and Brookfield.
Additionally, in October 2019, iCapital announced an expanded relationship with Schwab Advisor Services, allowing independent advisors that custody with Schwab to manage iCapital investments directly on the Schwab Alternative Investment Marketplace platform. iCapital is the first platform provider to deliver alternative investment options on the Schwab new marketplace.
Taking significant strides to mitigate the most frequently cited obstacles to these types of investments, iCapital worked persistently to deliver a comprehensive set of capabilities for advisors across the industry. To that end, in April 2019, iCapital also partnered with Nasdaq Private Market to offer liquidity solutions to advisors and their high-net-worth clients by creating an integrated secondary marketplace for iCapital sponsored funds through the NPM platform.
International Expansion
iCapital’s 2019 expansion included strides beyond the U.S., with international investments now accounting for over 15% of platform assets. In 2018, iCapital opened its first international office in Zurich, Switzerland to bring increased access and efficiency in alterative investing to the European market. In 2019, iCapital expanded its international marketing efforts to present solutions across the globe, including in Asia, the Americas and the Middle East.
Growing Leadership Team
iCapital continues to build out its team in order to improve upon the high-quality service and technical innovations it provides to clients. In 2019, iCapital nearly doubled its headcount to 218 employees. To help scale the support functions that the growing company relies on, iCapital also made several strategic senior-level hires.
- Michael Kushner was named Chief Financial Officer and is responsible for the financial reporting, budgeting, capital and shareholder management, treasury, controllers, and tax functions. Prior to joining iCapital, Mr. Kushner was with JPMorgan Chase & Co., for nearly 19 years, most recently as the Chief Financial Officer for Risk Management and Finance.
- Jennifer Ashley was named Chief People Officer. Prior to joining, Ms. Ashley was the Global Human Resources Leader for CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm that employs over 100,000 globally.
- Stephen Jacobs was named General Counsel leading the legal and regulatory operations of the firm. Previously, Mr. Jacobs was partner and co-chair of the Corporate Department at Herrick, Feinstein LLP.
Expanding Industry Education
iCapital is committed to helping advisors and their clients understand the opportunities in the alternative investment market through its sustained focus on education. In addition to regular thought leadership content on topics such as investment strategies, portfolio construction, practice management and asset class mechanics, 2019 saw the launch of iCapital’s Alternative Investments Compendium, which provides a quarterly guide to the alternative investment market through data on returns, fundraising volume, dry powder, deal volume, valuation multiples, asset flows, and market volatility.
Enhancing its capabilities to provide insight and innovative resources to the industry, iCapital launched its Network blog, embedded in its newly designed website, to provide advisors with timely, relevant and in-depth market and educational content.
“Ensuring advisors and their clients have the appropriate knowledge-level about these kinds of investing opportunities is an absolutely critical component in order to empower those wanting to add private investments to their portfolios,” says Mr. Calcano. “Private market funds are considerably more complex than traditional investments. iCapital produces high quality, user- friendly, and multi-formatted educational content to ensure advisors and investors can responsibly reap their benefits.”
Industry Recognition
In February 2019, iCapital was recognized as a leader in the financial technology space by Forbes. For the second year, iCapital was listed among the top 50 innovative fintech companies transforming finance through technology in the 2019 Forbes Fintech 50 list2.
Additionally, iCapital was selected as the leading alternative investment platform technology provider at the 2019 WealthManagement.com Industry Awards3 for its commitment to providing advisors with an intuitive, fully digitized, real-time view into a client’s private fund investments with the iCapital Document Workflow Solution. iCapital also won the award in 2018.
iCapital’s white label technology platform was also awarded the Best Banking Infrastructure Platform by the 2019 FinTech Breakthrough Awards4, which recognize the FinTech innovators, leaders, and visionaries from around the world.
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About iCapital Network
iCapital Network’s mission is to power the world’s alternative investment marketplace. Its financial technology platform has transformed the way alternative investments are bought and sold through the development of tech-based solutions for advisors, their high-net-worth client base, asset managers and banks. The firm’s flagship platform offers advisors and their clients access to a curated menu of private equity and hedge funds at lower minimums with a full suite of due diligence and administrative support in a secure digital environment. Asset managers and banks leverage iCapital’s tech-enabled services to streamline and scale their private investments operational infrastructure. iCapital was recognized in the 2018 and 2019 Forbes FinTech 50 which highlights the top 50 innovative financial technology companies that are transforming finance through technology. As of December 31, 2019, iCapital services more than $46.6 billion in invested capital across more than 100,000 underlying accounts.
For additional information, please visit iCapital’s website at icapital.com | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/icapital-network-inc | Twitter: @icapitalnetwork
1) Institutional Capital Network, Inc. (“iCapital Network”, “iCapital” or the “Company”)
2) Awards, rankings and/or recognition by unaffiliated rating services and/or publications should not be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he or she will experience a certain level of results if iCapital Network is engaged, nor should it be construed as a current or past endorsement of iCapital Network by any of its clients. Inclusion in the Forbes FinTech 50 list makes no guarantee to future performance and may not be representative of a platform user’s experience.
3) In their fifth year, the WealthManagement.com Industry Awards are presented annually by WealthManagement.com, a financial advisory industry publication from Informa. Companies and organizations are invited to complete a nomination application describing an initiative within several available categories that supports advisor success. WealthManagement.com also invites nominees to provide supplemental information to support their nomination in the form of third-party testimonials and/or confidential growth, user or performance metrics. A panel of industry experts selects the finalists and winners based on qualitative and quantitative performance indicators. Nomination or receipt of a WealthManagement.com Industry Award is not necessarily indicative of any particular client’s experience or a guarantee that the firm will perform in the future as it did during the period evaluated by the Award judges
4) All award nominations for the 2019 FinTech Breakthrough Awards are fully analyzed, evaluated and scored by a panel of judges, representing a mix of technical, business, academic and marketing expertise within the industry. The evaluation criteria for the FinTech Breakthrough Awards program are focused around the concept of innovation. FinTech Breakthrough has developed the evaluation criteria and a corresponding set of assessment tools and scales that they believe allow for a fair, honest and equitable assessment of each entry.
Disclosures:
This material is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as, and may not be relied on in any manner as legal, tax or investment advice, a recommendation, or as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to purchase or a recommendation of any interest in any fund or security offered by Institutional Capital Network, Inc. or its affiliates (together “iCapital Network” or “iCapital”). Past performance is not indicative of future results. Alternative investments such as those described are complex, speculative investment vehicles and are not suitable for all investors. An investment in an alternative investment entails a high degree of risk and no assurance can be given that any alternative investment fund’s investment objectives will be achieved or that investors will receive a return of their capital. The information contained herein is subject to change and is also incomplete. This industry information and its importance is an opinion only and should not be relied upon as the only important information available.
Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. Inclusion in the Forbes FinTech 50 list makes no guarantee to future performance and may not be representative of a platform user’s experience. Awards, rankings and/or recognition by unaffiliated rating services and/or publications should not be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he or she will experience a certain level of results if iCapital Network is engaged, nor should it be construed as a current or past endorsement of iCapital Network by any of its clients. Securities may be offered through iCapital Securities, LLC, a registered broker dealer, member of FINRA and SIPC and subsidiary of iCapital Network.
iCapital and iCapital Network are registered trademarks of Institutional Capital Network, Inc. All rights reserved.
