MFT Bulletin #13 - Family Office Technology News Roundup

Company News 

Canoe's $36 Million Funding Round

• Canoe Intelligence announced the completion of its $36 million Series C financing round, led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with participation from existing investors F-Prime Capital and Eight Roads. 
• The capital will be used to enhance Canoe's AI and machine learning technology and further market expansion.
• The firm said it achieved 100% year-over-year growth in clients and revenue since its Series B funding of $25 million in February 2023.
• Canoe supports over 1,000 limited partners across 650,000 commitments and subscriptions to over 42,000 funds.
• Other firms offering solutions for managing alts data that recently closed funding rounds include: Arch ($20 million, Nov 23), Accelex ($15 million, Nov 23) and AltExchange ($3 million, June 2024).

Eton Solutions Launches In India with Catamaran As Its Launch Customer

• Eton Solutions announced the launch of its ERP platform, AtlasFive®, for family offices in India, with Catamaran, the $1B+ private investment office of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, as its initial client. 
• India ranks third in the world in terms of the number of billionaires, behind China and the United States.
• Headquartered in North Carolina, Eton Solutions has had presence in India for five years, with over 300 employees at its Global Technology Center in Bengaluru supporting Eton's global clientele.  The firm also plans to establish a presence in GIFT City, Gujarat, to support its services growth.
• The platform manages over $781 billion for 665 families globally, processing 11.5 million transactions annually. Eton is an integrated family office accounting platform. 

Arta Finance Obtains License to Operate in Singapore

• Arta Finance, a digital family office for US Accredited Investors, has received regulatory approval to launch in Singapore. The firm, co-headquartered in the US and Singapore, will open its platform to Singaporean residents and others investing through Singapore later this year. 
• Founded by former Google executives, Arta emerged from its “stealth” phase in 2022, raising over $120 million from investors including Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO. 
• Co-founder and CEO, Ceasar Sengupta, said the launch in Singapore comes as the city-state has emerged as a new capital of global wealth and financial innovation.
• Arta uses AI technology to provide access to alternative investments and unlock liquidity through credit lines.

TIFIN Launches in India

• TIFIN, an AI and innovation platform for wealth, makes its international debut with the launch of TIFIN India.
• TIFIN India is organized into two main verticals: MyFi, an AI assistant for better wealth outcomes, and TIFIN India Enterprise, which will build AI-native products for financial services firms. 
• Launched in partnership with the DSP family group, TIFIN India Enterprise includes Aditi Kothari Desai, vice chairperson of the DSP Mutual Fund company, on its board of directors. 

Bain Capital to Acquire Envestnet in $4.5 Billion Deal

• Bain Capital is set to acquire Envestnet in a $4.5 billion deal, valuing Envestnet at $63.15 per share. Upon completion, Envestnet will become a privately held company. 
• The transaction, expected to close in Q4 2024, includes participation from Reverence Capital Partners and strategic partners like BlackRock, Fidelity Investments Franklin Templeton, and State Street Global Advisors. 
• Bain Capital aims to support Envestnet's growth and enhance its platform, which currently serves over 109,000 advisors and manages more than $6 trillion in assets​.
• This deal has generated some speculation among industry experts, we found this comment interesting.

Partnerships and Product Updates

Exclusive: Elysys Partners with The TM Group 

• Elysys Financial Systems, a Monaco-based provider of integrated family office software, and The TM Group, Inc., a Michigan-based provider of Microsoft Dynamics solutions in the US, have announced a strategic partnership. 
• The partnership will combine Elysys' versatile software for wealth and estate planning with TM Group's expertise and decades of experience in implementing and supporting Microsoft Dynamics solutions to deliver integrated financial management and reporting solutions to customers in the Midwest. 
• This partnership marks a significant step in Elysys' expansion into the US market.
• MyFOTech introduced the two companies.

Meradia and Accelex Announce Strategic Partnership

• Meradia and Accelex are partnering to enhance operational efficiency for investors in alternative assets, leveraging AI and machine learning. 
• Accelex was established in 2018 and is based in London, England. The firm provides technology-enabled data extraction and document management for private markets.
• Established in 1997, the West Chester, PA- based Meradia specializes in operations and technology consulting for the global investment management industry.
• In related news, Accelex has integrated ESG emissions data into its portfolio analytics platform, allowing users to visualize CO2 emissions data across various categories, aiding in identifying major emitters and tracking changes over time. This aims to address industry challenges like greenwashing and regulatory compliance.

Canoe Intelligence and Osyte Partnership

• Canoe Intelligence and Osyte have announced an integration partnership to streamline workflows for connecting documents and data for alternative investments. 
• This collaboration was brought on by a mutual client - BBR Partners, a boutique wealth management firm.
• The integrated, bidirectional solution will offer mutual clients an integrated solution for total portfolio and alts management, including data acquisition, multi-asset portfolio management, illiquid asset trading, and liquidity management.
• Osyte was founded in 2021 by Charles Anselm (CEO) and Sellappa Gopalaswamy (CTO), providing multi-asset investments and liquidity management solutions.

Intelliflo Introduces Compliance Rules Engine to RedBlack Platform

• Intelliflo announced the addition of a compliance rules engine to its portfolio rebalancing and trading platform, intelliflo redblack. 
• According to intelliflo, over 25% of the top 50 largest RIAs in the U.S. currently use intelliflo redblack.

SEI and Canoe Intelligence Enhance Integration for Family Offices

• SEI Family Office Services and Canoe Intelligence have announced an enhanced integration to automate the transmission of private equity and hedge fund valuations, as well as private equity call and distribution data. This aims to reduce the challenge of manual data management.  
• Since the start of their strategic partnership in 2020, Canoe has processed over 150,000 documents for SEI's clients and facilitated 24 mutual clients in automating data transmission for more than 3,400 alternative investments.

SS&C's 1H 2024 SS&C Advent, Eze Product Updates

• SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. announced updates to its systems, deepening collaborations between SS&C Advent, SS&C Eze, and other teams within SS&C Technologies, particularly SS&C GlobeOp.
• SS&C Advent introduced the Genesis Platform, integrating real-time data for accounting, portfolio, and trade order management; enhanced portfolio management with real-time positions, cash access, and improved tax loss harvesting; and order management with a consistent cloud-based UI. 
• Geneva® features custom fee structures, better cash management for CLOs, and expanded credit and fixed income capabilities. Eze Eclipse offers simplified trading workflows and expanded risk management and analytics solutions, while Eze OEMS supports electronic trading for various bonds with new liquidity views and automatic upgrades every six weeks.

Allvue Launches Fundraising Tool

• Allvue has introduced a new fundraising tool for its Investor Relations solution, including a fundraising portal and pipeline.
• The Fundraising Portal is a hub for prospective investors, featuring document sharing, a customizable interface, audit tracking, single sign-on, and Anduin API integration.
• The Fundraising Pipeline offers a comprehensive view of prospective investors with real-time tracking, customizable workflows, task management, dynamic dashboards, detailed tracking, and integrated data.
• Established in 2019 through the merger of Black Mountain Systems and AltaReturn, Allvue provides investment management solutions for the alternative investments industry, managing over $2.5 trillion in assets.

Elysys, Leafplanner and K1x

• Elysys Bank Gateway that automates the flow of data from third parties (custodian banks, brokers and aggregators) directly to its integrated portfolio management system now includes connections with J.P. Morgan (Luxembourg and US), Goldman Sachs (Europe and the US), BNP Paribas (Switzerland, Luxembourg, France), Interactive Brokers. 

• Leafplanner, a family organization and collaboration platform has introduced several features such as global search, filtering capabilities, system alerts on expiring documents and multiple file support for documents allowing storage of multiple versions. In related news, Matt Bennetter has joined the Leafplanner team. Based in Boston, Bennetter brings expertise in structuring and scaling sales operations for Series A technology companies within the family office and private wealth sector.

• K1x has introduced an update for 990 Filing automation that automatically adjusts to limit contributors on Schedule B using the greater than $5,000 or 2% threshold and removes the need for external calculations and manual modifications.

New Clients

• Scouting Capital & Family Advisors has partnered with Landytech to utilize its Sesame platform, enhancing their data aggregation and analytics capabilities. This partnership also aims to build a family office community, allowing international families to share investment opportunities. Scouting SIM Family Advisors focuses on innovative investment management for high-net-worth families in Italy and Europe. Landytech's Sesame is an investment management platform for multi-asset portfolios.

• ACP Group, a Miami-based boutique financial services group, has partnered with Masttro to expand and improve ACP’s wealth management services for family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals across Latin America, where c. 70% of its assets are based. ACP was founded 17 years ago and has presence in New York, Dallas, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, and Montevideo. Its services include private banking, wealth management, investment banking, and alternative investments. 

• Integrated Partners has teamed up with Wealth.com to enhance its estate planning services, providing advisors with digital tools for creating and managing estate plans. Wealth.com’s features include guided plan creation, visualizations, and insights to aid in drafting wills and directives. Integrated supports 212 advisors, 190+ CPAs and has 116 regional offices across the United States.

• Anderson Wealth Management (AWM), a boutique multi-family office with offices in Charleston, SC and Birmingham, AL has selected Addepar to support the development of its service offerings.

• FA Solutions, a Helsinki, Finland-based provider of investment management technology, has added Octopus Investments to its clients. Octopus is based in London, UK and manages £13.5* billion across individual and institutional investors. 

Moving and Grooving 

• Thomas Nicholson joined the team at Asora as Director of Sales, Americas to help the Dublin, Ireland-based company bring its platform to American family offices. Nicholson previously held a sales and relationship management role at STP Investment Services and has extensive experience in portfolio analysis and reporting for both multi and single-family offices. Additionally, he brings a background from a global financial services group.

• Elysys welcomed Jan Jenko to its team. Jenko is joining the 'portfolio reports and analytics' team providing support to existing and new clients. He will also play a crucial role in enhancing the ‘Elysys Analytics’ solution. Jenko was previously co-founder and CEO of PrizmaDesk, a Luxembourg and Ljubljana, Slovenia-based portfolio management software, which he exited earlier this year.

• Boosted.ai has appointed Geoff Clauss as Chief Revenue Officer. Clauss previously served as CRO of Blockdaemon and Head of Sales for Anchorage Digital. He also spent 7 years at Addepar during the firm's growth from a startup to a WealthTech leader. He is joining to help scale Boosted.ai's AI platform for investment managers. 

• Dynasty Financial Partners promoted Leslie Dentinger Norman to Chief Technology Officer. Previously, she was Deputy CTO, directing technology solutions across the Dynasty Network. She takes over the CTO role from Frank Coates who retired in late 2023. Leslie joined Dynasty in 2022 from Raymond James, where she led technology product development and operations projects. Dynasty recently surpassed $100 billion in assets with 55 firms and over 400 advisors. 

• Apex Group has appointed Nicholas Morse as Chief Revenue Officer for the Americas. Morse brings experience from prior roles at SS&C Technologies, Addepar, and BlackRock’s Aladdin. Apex Group operates in 50 jurisdictions, providing services to asset managers, financial institutions, private clients, and family offices, including fund administration, digital onboarding, custody, corporate services, and ESG advisory solutions.

Watching

Sandbox - a turnkey banking platform building liquidity solutions for wealthy individuals and their families. 

P.S.

Is determining the beneficial owners of a reporting company under the Corporate Transparency Act the practice of law. See this long opinion from the NJ Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law, or this brief summary.