FOTechHub Bulletin: Family Office Technology News Roundup – Jan-Feb, 2024

Company News

 

Collation.AI: Innovative Integration with AI-Driven Aggregation: Collation.AI, an AI-driven data aggregation platform and offspring of Singapore’s Canopy, has officially hit the market. Our community might recall getting a sneak peek of it, courtesy of its founder Tanmai Sharma, during our November conference. Sharma has started Collation.AI from a management buyout of Canopy’s US business, bringing along the CTO, head of implementation and head of sales. Sharma has now relocated to the US which is the primary focus market for the firm. Collation.AI describes its solution as “a centralized data warehouse where workflows are operated by AI bots” and it offers an exciting solution for the notorious pain of managing data across various platforms. See more background on the news here.

Curious about Collation.AI? Circle February 27 on your calendar for the next Tech-NEW-logy event. Mike Perez from F2 Strategy will host a discussion with Tanmai Sharma and Alex Lin, founder of SumIt, a next-gen general ledger startup also introduced at our conference.

 

TIFIN Give: Giving Place Acquisition and Unlocking the Potential of DAFs: TIFIN Give, the philanthropy-focused division of AI-wealth innovation platform TIFIN, has broadened its offerings through the acquisition of Giving Place, aiming to enhance support for family offices and foundations. This move allows legacy clients of Giving Place to access a bespoke white label DAF (donor-advised fund) platform, tapping into the rapidly expanding DAF sector, which has seen assets nearly double from 2018 to 2022, reaching approximately $230 billion. Predictions suggest this figure could soar to $1 trillion by 2030. The merged entity will operate under the leadership of Giving Place’s co-founder and CEO, Paul Lussow, with co-founder Jeff Grossman stepping in as the Chief Product Officer. TIFIN Give is one of the holdings of TIFIN, which has been backed by JP Morgan, Morningstar, Hamilton Lane, Franklin Templeton, Motive Partners, and Broadridge among others.

 

Brassica Joins Forces with BitGo in a Move to Digitize Alternative Investments: Brassica, the innovative startup that’s been disrupting the investment scene for private and alternative assets, was acquired by BitGo, a titan in the world of crypto and digital assets. Founded by the entrepreneurial Youngro Lee, Brassica burst onto the scene in March last year, fueled by an $8 million seed funding from fintech and blockchain-focused VCs. Lee will continue to lead Brassica as a division of BitGo, which, after a hefty $100 million funding round, is valued at a jaw-dropping $1.8 billion as of 2023. They’ve got big plans for Brassica, aiming to roll out fresh products across various asset classes. This merger could be a game-changer for BitGo’s quest to digitize the alternative asset industry. 

 

Clockwork Secures Backing From a Local Angels Group: Clockwork received funding from CAV Angels, an investment syndicate composed of University of Virginia alumni, students and friends. The investment of more than $1 million was split across three startups, all of which have a connection to the University of Virginia. Clockwork is a Charlotteville company that offers technology and services to streamline private investment monitoring, due diligence and company financial management. Its clients include family offices, individual investors, funds and intermediaries.

 

New Family Office Consulting Firm – ClarityEdge: Greg Silverman has officially launched ClarityEdge, a family office consulting firm that was soft-launched in January 2023. ClarityEdge specializes in providing detailed technology audits, tech selection, implementation, and integration. Greg’s experience includes roles at Versoft Consulting, GFG Capital and Geller Advisors. 

 

Foundation Source Snaps Up PG Calc: Foundation Source, a SaaS provider for private foundations, has acquired PG Calc, a planned giving services and software firm. This move expands Foundation Source’s offerings to include PG Calc’s gift administration services and software, consulting, and marketing tools for planned giving. PG Calc’s client base, including major financial services and educational institutions, will be integrated into Foundation Source. PG Calc President Gary Pforzheimer and other employees are transitioning over. Foundation Source was recently bought by GTRC, a PE firm, which has committed capital to fund acquisitions as part of the deal. 

 

Partnerships and Product Updates

 

Arch Elevates the Investment Game from Paperwork to Portfolio Intelligence: Arch is stepping up its game, moving from handling your private investment paperwork to launching Direct Company Insights – a cool new tool that provides details on the company’s geographical location, funding, headcount and other details, from seed to the IPO stage. The tool applies to direct investments, but can also be combined with their Fund Look-through tool to enrich data across the portfolio. More updates are expected in coming weeks, all following hot on the heels of Arch’s latest funding round.

 

Alkymi & Lionpoint Unite to Streamlining Alternatives Operations: Alkymi and Lionpoint Group have formed a strategic partnership to enhance digital transformation for clients in the alternative investment sector. This collaboration merges Alkymi’s AI and machine learning workflows with Lionpoint’s Data Validation Managed Services (DVMS) providing “human in the loop” review and exception management. Already serving three new clients in private equity and investment banking, the partnership focuses on automating key document workflows to streamline manual processes and improve operational efficiency. 

 

Forest Systems’ AI Sidekick for Accounting Data Management: Forest Systems is integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into accounting, enhancing efficiency in processing and managing documents. They’ve launched the Forest Integrations module in January 2024, offering training, exclusive access, and special pricing initially. Think of it as your AI sidekick in the world of numbers and spreadsheets, making managing and extracting data from documents easier, although still requiring human review and approval. In other updates, Forest have teamed up with Tax-1099 to offering a streamlined way to gather and submit Form 1099 data to the IRS and distribute to payees.

Forest is one of the specialist family office integrated accounting systems – keep an eye out for our forthcoming research paper that will unpack the intricacies of these systems.

 

Trustate’s New Solution: Transforming Trust and Estate Management: Trustate has rolled out a digital solution called “The Estate Balance Sheet with Instant Accountings”. The tool, aimed at trust estate attorneys and trust companies, simplifies the daunting task of estate management into an interactive dashboard tracking diverse assets, liabilities, and planning distributions in various scenarios. The solution is pitched as a replacement for Excel spreadsheets, allowing for real time collaboration among estate administrators, beneficiaries, and professional advisors.

 

SimCorp and Venn Team Up for Enhanced Portfolio Risk Management: SimCorp teams up with Venn by Two Sigma to boost risk management for asset owners and advisors. By blending SimCorp’s Axioma equity factor models with Venn’s advanced analytics, this collaboration aims to simplify managing multi-asset portfolios amidst a shift towards private markets. Venn’s platform, leveraging quantitative expertise, will now include advanced equity risk factors, offering insights to support investment workflows and understanding of risk and expected returns in a dynamic market.

 

Morningstar and iCapital Transform Alternatives Landscape for Advisors: Morningstar and iCapital formed a strategic partnership to integrate alternative investments into Morningstar’s Advisor Workstation, which boasts more than 170,000 users. This collaboration offers advisors tools and analytics to incorporate alternative assets into diversified portfolios. The partnership has already launched its initial phase allowing advisors to access the iCapital Marketplace. Following this news, iCapital made Architect – its portfolio construction tool – available on its iCapital Marketplace, now available to over 350,000 U.S. financial advisors. Architect’s analytics and visualizations allow advisors to evaluate the impact of adding alternatives – such as private equity, private credit, hedge funds, private real estate funds – and structured investments, to an existing portfolio of traditional investments. Architect will also be available to Morningstar Workstation’s users, once the integration is completed. 

 

Decoding Value Creation in Private Funds: Accelex amps up its analytics by adding a fund-level ValueBridge report that shows the contributing factors to each change in the value of the total since entry to aid in understanding how the value of the underlying companies is being created.​

 

Attune Solutions Launches WealthData Integration on Salesforce AppExchange: Attune Solutions launched Attune WealthData, Powered by BridgeFT, on Salesforce AppExchange. This integration allows users to access analytics-ready client and investment data from multiple custodians and back-office data sources. It aims to streamline business processes for wealth management firm.

 

Moving and Grooving

 

Marcum Prepares for Digital Evolution: Laura Macca joined Marcum as Executive Director, Head of Digital Transformation. She’s moving from EisnerAmper where she held a similar role. Laura started her career in a variety of tax roles before becoming chief of staff at Dalio Family Office (Bridgewater Associates). She was also a member of the IRS Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee (ETAAC) for 3 years. Laura serves on the Steering Committee for the Larry Kraus Family Office Tech-NEW-logy Institute, an organization we partner with.

 

Canoe Intelligence Enhances Team with Top Talent: Canoe recruited two key figures: Ex-CIA analyst Noel Calhoun steps in as the new CTO while Tiffany Mosher Taylor takes the helm as Head of People, bringing together a unique blend of technological expertise and HR acumen. In other news, Canoe teamed up with Ellevate – an RIA-focused consultancy and inked a deal with Gen II, a fund admin provider. The aim is to automate document management and data extraction from funds and investment notices, making life easier for allocators to fund-of-funds. 

 

InvestCloud’s New Leadership Transition: Following a management shakeup and multiple top executive departures including the CEO and co-founder John Wise in early 2023, InvestCloud named Jeff Yabuki as the new CEO and chairman. With nearly four decades of experience in financial services, Yabuki’s previous roles include CEO of Fiserv and chairman and founding partner of Motive Partners. In other staffing updates, Roy Wheeler has been brought on board as a senior account executive. Before making this leap, Wheeler held senior sales positions at Alkymi and Private Client Resources. InvestCloud, founded in 2011, supports over $6 trillion in assets for more than 550 clients and was recapitalized by Motive Capital Management and Clearlake Capital Group in 2021.

 

Alkymi Expands Team and Client Base: Alkymi has welcomed Priscilla Marshall Lukens and Kimberly Miller as directors of strategic accounts and expanded its data science team with the addition of Priyanka Pillai. In a related development, Alkymi has secured a new client for its AI-based Alpha product. Thompson Street Capital Partners, a St. Louis-based private equity firm, plans to leverage Alpha to enhance their data review and processing speed.

 

AI Guru Mark Minevich Joins 1fs: 1fs wealth, a wealth aggregation and intelligence platform, added Mark Minevich as strategic advisor. Mark is an AI strategist and expert, author, venture capitalist and advisor to various corporates and governmental organisations.

 

Ledgex Strengthens Team: Ledgex has grown its team by adding Peter Cunha as the director of business development. His career spans over three decades in the financial sector.

 

CAIS Expands Advisory Team: David Canter, a seasoned RIA industry expert, has been appointed as a Strategic Advisor at CAIS to enhance support for independent financial advisors, drawing on his extensive experience from leadership roles at Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab. Warren Seubel joined the company as MD, CAIS Solutions – a SaaS platform for wealth management firms that centralizes and streamlines alternative investment operations. Warren brings years of sales and growth experience from various roles, including Monomoy Capital Partners, JP Morgan and nearly 7 years at Addepar. He also served on the board of advisors for Mirador.

 

Envestnet CEO Bill Crager Transitions Leadership: Bill Crager is hanging up his CEO hat at Envestnet at the end of March, after nearly 25 years leading the RIA fintech. He will transition to a senior advisor role while board chair James L. Fox becomes interim CEO. This leadership change follows other recent executive shifts – it is the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter for Envestnet.

 

SS&C Technologies Enhances Board: SS&C Technologies has added Debra Walton-Ruskin to its Board of Directors. She is known for her key involvement in the Refinitiv-LSEG merger. Her career spans leadership positions at major firms like Thomson Reuters and involvement in initiatives supporting women in business.

 

Of Interest 

The IRS Is Recruiting an Army to Take on Wealthy Taxpayers (source: wealthmanagement.com)  The agency is also earmarking some of its Inflation Reduction Act funding to beef up its compliance technology. “It’s not just about the electronic filing, but it’s working on better ways to make the Schedule K-1 process, for instance, more electronic so we can get that data and try to match it to returns” – explains Eric Cirelli of the IRS Large Business and International Division.

 

What are we watching

Aleta – Denmark-based, ESG-focused wealth-aggregation platform for wealth owners. They’re expanding into the US.