NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--iCapital Network today announced the launch of its online marketplace connecting qualified investors with private equity fund managers. iCapital Network has created a comprehensive platform that enables qualified investors and their advisors to see over 2,000 private equity funds that are currently raising capital. The platform’s powerful suite of tools allows users to search and analyze funds as well as gain access to a subset of funds at low investment minimums through iCapital Private Access Funds.1
iCapital’s password-protected, secure platform will be provided free of charge to thousands of qualified investors and advisors, including independent RIA firms, family offices and institutional investors.
Until now, private equity has largely been the domain of institutional investors. The vast majority of high net worth individuals and independent investment advisors have had limited or, in many cases, no ability to access top managers of private funds. In addition to the challenges of finding private equity fund offerings, individual investors often lack the tools and information required to evaluate the private equity fund offerings that they do sporadically come across. In addition, high minimum investment thresholds have made it difficult for most high net worth investors and family offices to invest in individual funds and to build a portfolio of private equity investments.
iCapital Network provides high net worth investors with access to funds managed by select private equity fund managers through the iCapital Private Access Fund Program at minimums as low as $100,000. The Private Access Funds offered on the platform will be selected by iCapital’s Private Access Fund Selection Committee, and will enable fund general partners (“GPs”) to aggregate commitments from high net worth investors in an efficient and cost effective manner. Investors on the iCapital platform will benefit from significant diligence undertaken by iCapital’s experienced team.
iCapital has assembled a consortium of leading private equity fund placement firms to ensure access to a large, diversified group of high quality managers. This consortium, which was initiated by Credit Suisse’s Private Fund Group (NYSE: CS), now consists of several other leading placement agents including Eaton Partners, Park Hill Group an affiliate of Blackstone (NYSE: BX), Evercore’s Private Funds Group (NYSE: EVR), Monument Group and Capstone Partners. The consortium collectively evaluates over 750 private funds each year and employs some of the most experienced professionals in capital raising for private equity funds.
Search. Analyze. Invest.
iCapital Network has operated in a limited beta mode since the spring of 2014 to build a critical mass of funds and investors. The iCapital platform includes details on over 2,000 private funds currently raising capital, spanning private equity, real estate, venture capital, mezzanine, credit and real assets. The platform also boasts aggregated qualified investor assets of more than $450 billion, which is expected to reach at least $850 billion by the end of 2014.
The platform’s comprehensive fund manager profiles allow investors to search for and learn about GPs and their funds. Profiles include fund and performance data from Preqin, the leading source of data and intelligence to the alternative assets industry, in tandem with GP-supplied data and information. Premium profiles include “roadshow” videos, presented in a chapter format, allowing users to watch fund managers tell their story firsthand and to easily focus on their key areas of interest. iCapital partners with Privcap to produce these videos from a production video studio in the iCapital NY office. iCapital’s comprehensive profiles create an efficient, cost-effective way for GPs to reach a wider audience of qualified investors and gain new direct investments.
iCapital Network also provides aggregated, peer group data from Burgiss, the portfolio management software of choice for leading institutional investors in private equity. As a result, investors can seamlessly conduct quartile analyses of fund managers by asset class, strategy, geography, size and performance. In addition, iCapital has formed a strategic partnership with Intralinks®, Inc. (NYSE: IL), one of the PE industry’s largest providers of content management and data security solutions, to allow GPs the option to provide limited partners with direct access to data within their secure Intralinks Fundspace data rooms, including investor presentations, private placement memorandums, limited partner agreements and related diligence materials.
Gen II Fund Services has partnered with iCapital to provide fund administration services for the Private Access Fund Program. iCapital Private Access Funds provide an efficient structure – handling administration, capital calls, distributions, tax/K-1 preparation and investor reporting – at a more efficient cost structure than most traditional fund-of-funds or wirehouse offerings.
Commentary from iCapital Network Founders and Management
“Having operated in the alternative investment space for more than 25 years, I remain astonished that the private equity fundraising processes have remained largely untouched by technology. iCapital was launched with the vision of using technology to enhance and complement current fundraising practices, as well as with the conviction to modernize and systematize the historically inaccessible world of private equity fund investing for qualified high net worth investors,” said iCapital Network Director John Robertshaw, who also serves as Vice Chairman at Credit Suisse Securities and has been with the Private Fund Group for more than 19 years.
“At inception, iCapital Network has come to market with a powerful alliance of strategic partners and best of breed service providers, signaling the promise and significance of this exciting new company,” stated Phil Pool, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of iCapital.
“iCapital was created to redefine the level of access and market intelligence available to both investors and PE fund managers. We have assembled a team and platform of strategic partners with the potential to fundamentally change the alternative investing space,” said Dan Vene, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of iCapital Network.
“Building out a significant distribution network has been a priority for iCapital,” said Lawrence Calcano, Managing Partner of iCapital Network. “With over $450 billion of wealth manager, family office, RIA and qualified individual investors on the platform to date, we have a network of investors with real purchasing power that is actively increasing exposure to the highest quality private equity managers.”
Nick Veronis, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of iCapital Network, stated, “The retail market represents an enormous, largely untapped pool of capital for the private equity industry. Fund managers should be exploring this channel now as it will become an increasingly important source of capital for them. Our platform offers a turn-key solution to aggregate high net worth commitments through a single vehicle, providing select GPs with an efficient and compliant way to enter this market.”
About iCapital Network
iCapital Network is an online platform that unlocks the world of private equity, enabling institutions and qualified investors to search and analyze the performance history of hundreds of fund managers and gain direct access to a diverse range of private funds, including buyout, growth equity, real estate, mezzanine, infrastructure, real assets and venture. iCapital’s innovative and secure portal makes it possible for top performing fund managers to both source new institutional investors and efficiently aggregate commitments from a network of independent advisors, wealth managers, family offices and qualified individual purchasers. This powerful platform features integrated content and data from best-in-class providers including Burgiss, Intralinks, Preqin and Privcap. The company is led by an accomplished team of industry executives who have raised hundreds of billions of dollars of private equity capital and backed by a group of industry leading strategic partners.
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1 Securities offered through Bendigo Securities, LLC, a registered broker/dealer, and a member or FINRA and SIPC.
