iCapital (a fintech platform driving the world’s alternative investment marketplace for the wealth and asset management industries) and Parallel Markets (a leader in reusable financial identity, providing a scalable and end-to-end solution for investor onboarding, verification, and monitoring) announced they have entered a definitive agreement under which iCapital is expected to acquire Parallel Markets.
Integrating Parallel Markets’ advanced technology with iCapital’s onboarding and compliance monitoring processes will help fund managers and wealth advisors with a seamless user journey within the iCapital ecosystem while ensuring compliance in a constantly evolving regulatory landscape.
The new iCapital Investor Passport will provide a turnkey onboarding solution for all fund investors, institutional and wealth management, creating a universal reusable investor identity that can be used across iCapital Marketplace and the suite of offerings on iCapital’s platform for global alternative asset managers.
And this digital identity will function as a data locker for storing, managing, and sharing personal information needed for fund subscription and compliance verification in private markets. It will make it easier for investors from around the world to manage and share their KYB (Know Your Business) / KYC (Know Your Customer) data while helping fund managers scale more efficiently and ensure consistency in compliance, including AML (Anti-Money Laundering).
With universal passport identity technology, fund managers have the potential to realize significant reductions in onboarding time and overhead costs. And investors typically upload sensitive information repeatedly for different opportunities, and iCapital, fund managers, and issuers bear the burden of reviewing and verifying this information.
The terms of the agreement were undisclosed.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are thrilled to announce the acquisition of Parallel Markets and welcome their team to the iCapital family. Onboarding and verifying digital investor identity and compliance is a major friction point in private markets investing. Parallel Markets has pioneered software that supports a reusable investor passport, streamlining these duplicative processes for advisors, investors, and fund managers. As we continue to evolve our tech stack, we will enhance automated entry for alternative investing and leverage AI and machine learning to offer a complete, intuitive end-to-end solution. This is expected to result in faster onboarding, reduced costs, and a more efficient investment process.”
- Lawrence Calcano, Chairman and CEO of iCapital
“We built an industry-leading onboarding and KYC/AML Passport solution for financial institutions who are looking to streamline and scale their business by eliminating redundant processes. As of today, we have focused on fund managers and the broader private wealth channel which is an increasingly important focus for leading financial institutions. We are thrilled to join iCapital and together provide an innovative, tech-enabled identity management service that powers further integration between asset and wealth managers in a seamless experience.”
- Tony Peccatiello, Co-founder and CEO of Parallel Markets, who will be joining iCapital as part of the acquisition
