Welcome to the 5th episode of a collaboration between iCapital x Alt Goes Mainstream.Here’s the latest episode of the Monthly Alts Pulse, a live conversation in studio with Lawrence Calcano, the Chairman & CEO of iCapital, who as the leader of a platform that is responsible for the majority of individual and advisor-led investment flows into the alts space, has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in private markets.On this episode, Lawrence and I had a fun and lively discussion. We covered:How interest in alts is growing around the world.What Lawrence learned on his trips to Europe, LatAm, and Asia meeting with advisors, private banks, and GPs across those respective regions.Why each region has its own unique challenges, in large part due to different regulatory structures and wealth management market structures.How to build a global alts business while simultaneously tailoring the culture and client experience to specific client demands.Why global, brand name fund managers may resonate in different parts of the world.Why advisors are very focused on products right now that have a “modicum of liquidity.”Stories and anecdotes from Lawrence’s conversations at an event they hosted with over 200 advisors in LatAm through iCapital’s partnership with Unicorn Strategic Partners.Why being on the ground to understand different cultures and ecosystems is so important to learning and building the right organic feedback loops to structure solutions in private markets.Thanks Lawrence for a great episode … looking forward to next month’s conversation!

Shannon Saccocia, CIO of Neuberger Berman Private Wealth, discusses the evolving landscape of private markets. Topics include the definition of alts, changing nature of asset allocation, evolution of fees, importance of geopolitics, secondaries as onramp, fiduciary role, challenges of productization, engaging with the changing wealth channel, forward thinking in allocating alternatives, changing role of exits, exploring unique alternative investments.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.Today’s show dives into the collision of culture, sports, and finance. We talk with Chase Griffin, a student-athlete and QB at UCLA, who has become a pioneer in the college athletics Name Image Likeness (NIL) movement and is the 2x winner of the NIL Male Athlete of the Year awards from the NIL Summit and Opendorse.Chase has excelled on and off the field, so he’s no stranger to success. In high school, he was the Texas Gatorade Player of the Year, and he turned down Ivy League offers to commit to UCLA. At UCLA, he’s played behind NFL draft pick Dorian Thompson-Robinson and put up strong performances on the field. Off the field, he’s been a leader in the NIL movement and an exemplary scholar-athlete, to the point where his coach at UCLA, Chip Kelly, has said, “if you could buy stock in a human, buy stock in Chase Griffin.”Chase has deftly navigated the rapidly changing landscape of the NIL to secure over 30 NIL brand deals and launched the community / charity giving platform #NILforGood. He recently joined Range Media Partners as Athlete/Creator in Residence and contributes to Range business operations across Sports, NIL, Film, TV, Music, and Social Impact.Chase and I had a fascinating discussion about how the NIL could change college sports as we know it and how it will coincide with more investment into college athletics. At a time when private equity firms are investing into companies that are part of the developing NIL ecosystem and possibly even investing into collegiate athletics conferences, Chase shares his views on the impact that the NIL and financialization of sports has on athletes, colleges, pro sports, and broader student bodies.Congrats on all the accomplishments in your young career thus far, Chase. Thanks for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your experiences and wisdom on the NIL.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.On today’s show, we bring the institutional family office perspective to private markets. We talk with Jamie Rhode, a Principal at Verdis Investment Management. Verdis is a single family office based in Philadelphia that was built on the rich legacy of the family, a major business family, that has spanned over three centuries.At Verdis, Jamie is focused on venture capital, private equity, and hedge fund investment sourcing and due diligence. She joined Verdis from Bloomberg, where she held roles in both equity research and credit analysis. Verdis is an active investor in the venture capital ecosystem, leveraging a data-driven investment approach that Jamie spearheads to allocate to mainly smaller and emerging managers. They’ve taken a very thoughtful approach to asset allocation, particularly venture, and have had a number of valuable insights on asset allocation come out of that process.Jamie and I had a fascinating discussion about the allocator’s perspective on venture capital and smaller fund managers.We discussed:Why Jamie believes that 90% of investment returns come from asset allocation strategy.Why smaller funds often drive the best returns.Why illiquidity and duration are so critical to producing outsized returns, with Verdis finding that the last 20% of the hold period of a fund producing 46% of the returns.Why Verdis believes in the strength of the YC network.The perfect fund size and portfolio construction.Why former operators may not make the best fund managers in Jamie’s view.Thanks Jamie for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom and data-driven perspectives.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.Today we bring on one of the world’s largest pre-seed investors to cover what the state of early-stage investing looks like.We welcome Maelle Gavet, the CEO of Techstars, a leading accelerator and global investment business that works with early-stage startups. Maelle has taken a background where she’s been a CEO, COO and operator at the likes of Priceline and Compass to run Techstars as they continue to transform their business. Techstars has invested in over 3,700 early-stage startups that have collectively achieved over $98B in all-time accelerator portfolio market capitalization.With a global reach and an early-stage perspective across ecosystems and sectors, Maelle was in a great position to share views on: Why being relentless makes a great founder.Why, even despite more seed funds than ever, there’s still been an increase in applications to Techstars by over 2.5x.Why Techstars can be seen as the ultimate fund-of-funds in her view.Why an actively managed index of early-stage innovation can make sense for many allocators.Thanks Maelle for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom and perspectives on early-stage investing.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.Today, we travel to London to talk with someone who has seen the evolution of the European tech ecosystem up close.We discuss the rise of Europe with Isomer Capital’s Co-Founder and Managing Partner Joe Schorge. Isomer is a pan-European fund-of-funds, co-investment, and secondaries platform that is on its way to €1B AUM. They’ve invested in 70 VC funds, including the likes of Seedcamp, Hoxton Ventures, Atlantic Labs, and leading European companies like Sorare, Refurbed, Zenjob, and more.Joe has a fascinating perspective on European’s tech ecosystem on a number of dimensions. He’s an American who moved to Europe in the late 1990s to work in tech before moving to the allocator and investor side. He worked as an investment consultant at Cambridge Associates, where he advised institutional investors in Europe and MENA on strategy, planning, and implementation that amounted to over $2B of capital across 75 transactions in private markets. He was then a Managing Director at Pomona Capital in Europe, where he focused on secondaries, fund investing, and co-investments, which paved the way for him to found Isomer as one of the early institutional pan-European fund-of-funds based in Europe.Joe and I had a rich conversation about the past, present, and future of the European tech ecosystem. We discussed:Why Europe is a great place to invest right now.Perspectives on how to build a tech ecosystem, given Joe’s deep experience and history in Europe.How they uncovered two local funds which invested in one of Europe's biggest tech successes, UiPath.The biggest opportunities in the ecosystem.Why availability of capital is not the issue for the European ecosystem.Why local funds will still win in their respective regions at pre-seed and seed.Why there are different skillsets that both investors and founders need to have to succeed in Europe.What the current market environment means for European venture.Why more institutional investors should be allocating to European venture.Thanks Joe for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom and experiences about European venture and thanks to the EUVC team, Andreas Munk Holm and David Cruz e Silva, for the intro to Joe, where they together have a fantastic partnership between Isomer and EUVC.

Welcome to the 4th episode of a collaboration between iCapital x Alt Goes Mainstream.Here’s the latest episode of the Monthly Alts Pulse, a live conversation in studio with Lawrence Calcano, the Chairman & CEO of iCapital, who as the leader of a platform that is responsible for the majority of individual and advisor-led investment flows into the alts space, has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in private markets.On this episode, Lawrence and I had a fun and lively discussion. We covered:What iCapital is seeing in the market now.How the evolution of wealth management is coinciding with the growth of alts.How the rise of the “super RIA / aggregator” can help accelerate the adoption of alts.How improving equity markets could shorten fundraising cycles for funds.How the needs of the wealth manager has evolved as wealth management platforms have evolved.Why the need for high-quality — and uniform — infrastructure and end-to-end automation is so critical to enable wealth advisors to properly participate in private markets.How iCapital is endeavoring to build the operating system for private markets through automation.Where infrastructure innovation in private markets goes from here. How and why alts will become a core part of an investors’ portfolio.How the evolution of various market structures — equities, fixed income, and products like ETFs and mutual funds — provides lessons learned for the evolution of alts market structure.Thanks Lawrence for a great episode … looking forward to next month’s conversation! 

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.Startup stories are often stuff of dreams — and today’s podcast is a story about one of tech’s most unlikely venture capitalists.Journalist and professional soccer player turned immigrant turned self-proclaimed "best carwasher in San Jose" turned Persian rug salesman turned top Silicon Valley seed investor Pejman Nozad, the Co-Founder & Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC comes on the show to chronicle his journey that has crossed continents to back many of tech’s top companies. While his story has taken him many places, one thing has stayed constant — his ability to build relationships and connect with people. And that talent has enabled him to succeed in building a top seed fund in Pear with his partner and serial entrepreneur Mar Hershenson, where they have backed the likes of DoorDash, Gusto, Guardant Health, Aurora, and many more.Pejman shares everything from how to build relationships to how to build a seed fund.We discussed so many fascinating topics:What he looks for in founders.Why family is so important.How and why building relationships is so critical in early-stage investing.How Pear has built out a multitude of products and services for founders across pre-seed and seed.How companies can go from zero to product-market fit.Why some of the largest institutional LPs are interested in a dedicated pre-seed and seed strategy. I also learned that he makes some really good Persian tea, which is apparently even better than Sadaf.It was a pleasure to have you on the show, Pejman, to share a story for the ages and one that is still being written.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.Today’s episode features a pioneer in the sustainable investing world. Bill Orum, who is a Partner at Capricorn Investment Group, has proven that investors can do well and do good at the same time. Bill and his Partners have led Capricorn, a $9B AUM sustainable investment platform serving families, foundations, and institutional investors for over 20 years as a full service OCIO and investment platform.Capricorn has been an innovator for a number of years and has evolved into a firm with three distinct but related investment strategies: an OCIO, a GP stakes business that backs asset managers focused on sustainable investing, and the Technology Impact Fund, a VC fund that manages both Capricorn capital and outside capital and is focused on backing companies providing climate solutions.Capricorn has managed to navigate a complex investing strategy — impact or sustainable investing — and the many geopolitical and governmental challenges associated with climate focused investing in order to generate impressive investment results.Bill and I had a fascinating conversation. We discussed: The evolution of impacting investing.How and why generating impact and strong financial returns aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.How to find and seed managers.Why it’s so important to allocate capital to solving the climate challenge. How they’ve helped normalize sustainable investing.Thanks Bill for coming on the show to share your wisdom and knowledge and for being a pioneer in the sustainable investing space, something so important for the future of our planet.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.On today’s show, we dive into the world of wealth management with one of the industry’s leaders, Haig Ariyan.Haig has seen it all. He went from someone who grew up in the advisory world as a wealth manager at Dean Witter Reynolds to ultimately becoming President and CEO of Alex Brown, America’s first investment banking firm. At Alex Brown, he oversaw 220 financial advisors and $70 billion in client assets. When Alex Brown sold to Raymond James Financial, Haig became the Head of Global Wealth Solutions. Prior to Alex Brown, Haig was Head of Deutsche Bank Wealth Management in the Americas.Haig is taking his expertise to build Arax Investment Partners. Together with RedBird Capital, an $8.6B private equity firm focused on financial services and sports and media, Arax is partnering with wealth and asset management firms and teams to build a differentiated platform that takes lessons learned and deep experience from running wealth management businesses.Haig and Arax are well-capitalized and off to a flying start. They’ve already acquired their first few wealth businesses as well as a $1B AUM broker-dealer that will give them the foundation to build on as a hybrid platform.Haig and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of wealth management and how alts are playing a big role in shaping the future of wealth.We discussed: What it means to be an advisor.Why Modern Portfolio Theory was such an important innovation for the industry.Why the hybrid brokerage and advisory model makes sense.How the wealth management space will continue to evolve.How alts can be a differentiator for advisor practices.How to build a platform that incentivizes advisor teams.Thanks Haig for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wealth of wisdom.