Opto Investments, a private markets technology platform for wealth management firms, has launched a new tool called Planner.
Now available to firms on the platform, Planner aims to simplify the process of investing in long-term private markets. It assists advisors in determining appropriate allocations to target private markets and in designing an investment pacing strategy that is customized for each client.
As with many aspects of alternative investing, little technology has been available until now to assist firms with the finer aspects of planning such investments.
“Many times, there was no software to support them, and advisors often had to follow their firm's best practices—and perhaps work and track these processes in spreadsheets,” often resulting in a single process that just doesn't scale, he said Opto CEO Ryan VanGorder,
According to VanGorder, Planner supports three major steps in private market investing. The first is to help the advisor think about what goals make the most sense for a given client based on their age, existing financial plan and investments, time horizon, goals, etc., by applying sophisticated analytics. The tool then assists the advisor in matching the level of risk inherent in an investment to that of the client. Third, it determines the optimal pace strategy, or how to grow long-term investments over time.
Advisors can select target allocations leveraging their firm's model portfolios through custom funds created in partnership with Opto. In Opto parlance, a custom fund is a single, fully customized, white-label fund comprised of multiple private underlying funds that a firm can access and manage using the company's platform.
Opto has developed native API integrations with major reporting engines used by wealth management firms, making it easy for firms to bring these investments into their reporting systems and vice versa.
company launched its custom fund capabilities a year ago. As part of this process, Opto completes due diligence, provides an opinion on the underlying investments, and uses its own capital and balance sheet to support the investments.
Opto Investments was co-founded by serial entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale (also founder of Addepar and co-founder of Palantir) and five others. It came out of stealth mode in September 2022 when it announced $145 million in Series A funding and is now working with more than 250 RIA firms.
“The planner enables advisors to clearly show clients how private markets can help them achieve their goals within the context of their total portfolio – and then lays out the steps to get there,” said Eytan Schindelhaim, head of the product in Opto Investments in one. statement.