Alt Goes Mainstream: The Latest on Alternative Investments, WealthTech, & Private Markets Michael Sidgmore

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s episode features an enabler of the micro VC movement who has now scaled his business into one of the industry’s larger fund administrators. Braughm Ricke is the Founder and CEO of Aduro Advisors, a leading fund administrator that has carved out a sterling reputation in the VC world.
He's grown the business to over $114B+ AUA and over 450+ customers, that counts many of the leading VC funds, including Lowercarbon, Cowboy Ventures, Ahoy Capital, Craft, Haystack, Boost VC, and others, as customers. They've also managed to combine a high-quality service with innovative technology and a partnership strategy that has enabled them to differentiate from other fund admins.
Prior to founding Aduro, Braughm was the founding CFO of True Ventures, a leading Silicon Valley VC fund. Braughm is incredibly knowledgeable about the private markets space more generally and is also an active investor in the private markets startup ecosystem, investing early in the likes of Carta, Allocate, Passthrough, Arch, and others.
Braughm and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of fund administration. We discussed:
Why Braughm started with emerging managers and the unmet need he saw to serve them.Why he believed the emerging manager landscape would grow.How he’s moved upstream beyond venture capital clients.How fund admin can integrate technology.Will AI change fund administration?Advice Braughm would give to founders building in private markets.Thanks Braughm for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom on building a core infrastructure provider for private markets.

Welcome to the 9th 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.
In today’s episode, Lawrence and I welcome a special guest. Arax Investment Partners CEO Haig Ariyan, a wealth management industry veteran, joins us to discuss the evolution of wealth management and the role that alts can and should play in wealth client portfolios. Together with RedBird Capital, an $8.6 billion AUM private equity firm focused on financial services and sports and media, Haig and Arax are partnering with wealth and asset management firms and teams to build a differentiated platform that takes lessons learned and deep experience from Haig's background running wealth management businesses. Following its recent acquisition of $9B AUM U.S. Capital Wealth Advisors, Arax now has over $16.5B in AUM and $13B in regulatory AUM.
On this episode, Lawrence, Haig, and I had a fascinating and lively discussion. We covered a number of topics, including:
The importance of independent and hybrid platforms in wealth management.How to build culture at a wealth management firm.How advisors can utilize alternative investments to benefit their clients.How the industry can collaborate to enhance client outcomes and ensure informed investment decisions.How innovative fund structures could change the landscape of private markets.Thanks Lawrence and Haig for a great episode … looking forward to next month’s conversation!

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s episode is with a fintech founder who has scaled one of the larger private markets investing platforms for individual investors.
Michael Weisz is the Founder and CEO of Yieldstreet, a leading private markets investing platform, with more than 450K members and $3.9B invested (as of October 2023). 
An award-winning entrepreneur, he co-founded Yieldstreet in 2015 with the ambition to provide individual investors with access to curated private market assets typically reserved for institutions. As CEO, Michael leads Yieldstreet’s strategic vision to make alternatives a fundamental piece of investor portfolios.
Before Yieldstreet, Michael held a variety of positions across the specialty finance spectrum, including founding Soli Capital. Previously, Michael was Vice President at a New York-based credit opportunities hedge fund with $1.2B under management.
Michael and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of private markets and how to deliver investment opportunities directly to consumers. We discussed the business evolution of Yieldstreet, how they work with both individuals and advisors, and what he thinks is important when it comes to providing investors with access to private markets.
Thanks Michael for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your thoughtful views on private markets.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s episode with an internet legend provides an illuminating window into how the past can help inform us about the future.
Steve Case is a pioneer and a visionary. He built one of the foundational companies of the internet, AOL, that brought America and the world online. As one of America’s best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs, Steve has spent the past 39 years building, investing in, and shaping business policy for many industry-defining companies.
His entrepreneurial career began in 1985 when he co-founded America Online. Under Steve’s leadership, AOL became the world’s largest and most valuable internet company. AOL was the first internet company to go public, and one of the best performing stocks of 1990s, delivering 11,616% return to shareholders. At its peak, nearly half of internet users in the U.S. used AOL.
Steve has since built another successful company, Revolution, a Washington, D.C.-based investment firm that backs entrepreneurs at every stage of their development. Revolution Growth has invested nearly $1 billion in growth-stage companies including Sweetgreen, Tempus, Tala, DraftKings, and CLEAR. Revolution Ventures has invested in almost 30 companies, including Framebridge and SRS Acquiom. Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund has invested in over 200 startups in 100 US cities, building critical ecosystem development for entrepreneurship across the country.
Steve’s passion for helping entrepreneurs has extended to the policy world. He was the founding chair of the Startup America Partnership, an effort launched at the White House in 2011 to accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship around the country. He was also the founding co-chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and a member of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, where he chaired the subcommittee on entrepreneurship. He was also instrumental in passing the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act and the Investing in Opportunities Act. He’s also the Chairman of the Case Foundation, which he established with his wife, Jean, in 1997 and together in 2010 they joined The Giving Pledge.
Steve is also the author of the New York Times bestselling book, “The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future and The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the American Dream,” which has ended up serving as a fantastic blueprint for the next wave of the internet.
Steve and I had a fascinating and illuminating conversation, full of lessons learned from building the first wave of the internet that can be applied to building and investing in companies today.
We discussed:
How Steve and his team built AOL into the world’s largest and most valuable internet company at a time when 3% of people were using the internet for 1 hour a day.How revolutions happen in evolutionary ways.The three waves of the internet and why Steve believes that the third wave is much more complex and will require the ability to navigate policy and partnerships.Lessons he learned as a founder to build a successful and diversified investment firm in Revolution.How emerging technology ecosystems can build thriving startup communities, starting with “tentpole companies.”How the things that happen to you shape how you live your life and on “living a life that’s full with passion and urgency.”Thanks Steve for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom, lessons learned, and visionary views of the future. It was an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today’s episode takes us into the world of technology with an expert in private markets tech.
Griff Norville is a Managing Director and Head of Technology Solutions at Hamilton Lane, the $903B AUM (*Inclusive of $120.2B in discretionary assets under management and $782.9B in non-discretionary assets under management, as of December 31, 2023) global alternative asset manager. Griff leads the firm’s tech-enabled analytics, forecasting, and investment diligence platform, Cobalt LPTM and related portfolio reporting services, and co-heads the firm’s Technology Committee.
Griff focuses on building proprietary tools and strategically partnering or investing into private markets fintech companies as part of the firm’s efforts to drive digital transformation within the industry. Griff also leverages his background on the investment side to help inform how he thinks about technology transformation within private markets. He previously co-led Hamilton Lane’s research team, where he was responsible for leveraging data to assess market trends and advice clients on investment and portfolio construction strategy.
Griff and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of private markets technology and why it’s an exciting time for innovation in the space. We discussed:
How private markets are moving from the Stone Age and Excel age to the digital age.Why most GPs are still underinvested in technology.How Griff approaches the build, buy, invest question.Why Cobalt was so foundational to Hamilton Lane’s work in private markets.How technology innovation has driven product innovation when working with the wealth channel.What comes next for technology in private markets.Thanks Griff for coming on the show to share your thoughts and wisdom on how technology is impacting private markets and for the work you’re doing to invest in technology that’s transforming the space.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
Today we have the operator’s view on the show. We bring in someone who rose up the ranks of a private equity-backed software company to be CEO of that company — ECi Software Solutions — that now generates over $500M in revenue and $200M in EBITDA.
We welcome Ron Books, now an Operating Partner at Carlyle and the CEO at Net Health, a Carlyle portfolio company. He also sits on a number of boards for Carlyle.
He is now the Chairman and is the former CEO of ECi Software Solutions, a leading global provider of cloud-based software for SMEs, which he successful sold to Leonard Green & Partners for a multi-billion dollar exit. Ron started with ECi when it was a startup company and rose in the organization to serve as VP Sales, then COO, and then CEO, a position which he held from 2009 to 2021. While serving as CEO, Ron and his team developed and executed a strategic plan that included overseeing 46 M&A transactions and a successful software license to cloud migration across nearly a dozen platforms. They received investment from — and sold the business to — Insight Partners, Carlyle, Apax Partners, Goldman Sachs, and most recently, Leonard Green & Partners. Under his leadership as CEO, ECi grew from less than $50M in revenue to over $500M and a sale of the company in 2020 at a multi-billion dollar valuation.
Ron has all the hallmarks of a successful entrepreneur — energetic yet thoughtful, a tireless work ethic, the ability to connect with customers and employees, and loyalty to both customers and employees.
Ron and I had a fascinating conversation about what it takes to build a great company and culture and how to work with private equity given that he’s been on both sides of the table. We discussed:
Lessons learned from growing a business to $500M in revenue and $200M in EBITDA.How he built and grew ECi through acquisitions and globalizing the business.Why culture matters and how to vet for culture in the hiring process.Stories from the challenges and successes of integrating 41 companies via M&A.How founders should think about working with private equity firms.How founders can get the most out of their board members and operating partners.The transition from CEO to Operating Executive back to CEO.Thanks Ron for coming on the show to share your wisdom and experiences that are an invaluable source of learnings for both founders and investors.