Introduction
In 2024, most fund managers are still using spreadsheets and email to run their funds. There is a certain irony that VCs funding the most innovative tech and latest AI startups are still calling LPs to make sure they have the right wire instructions (the same way things have been since way back in 1872 when the first wire transfers were sent).
Independent Sponsors who have left their high-powered PE jobs are taking their exceptional Excel skills to close $20m micro-PE deals on spreadsheets.
The real estate investor who owns half the town, still physically prints out and mails 80 pages of new deals, property info, distribution checks, and portfolio performance to his investors each month or quarter.
The first question to ask is why?
The Status Quo
The answer is, doing it old-school works (sort of). The advantages of the status quo can be perceived as:
1 | Customization: Spreadsheets offer almost infinite customization options, allowing fund managers to tailor their workflows to their specific needs and preferences, ensuring seamless integration with their existing processes. |
2 | Personal Touch: Email and phone communication enable fund managers to maintain a personal connection with their investors, fostering trust and strengthening relationships through direct engagement. |
3 | Familiarity: Fund managers and investors alike are accustomed to using spreadsheets, email, and telephone, cutting the need for extensive training or onboarding processes when adopting new platforms. |
4 | Cost-effective: Traditional methods are generally free or low-cost, as opposed to paid platforms and software solutions, making them an attractive choice for firms with limited budgets. |
5 | Flexibility: Fund managers have complete control over their processes and can adjust as needed, without being constrained by the limitations of a third-party platform. |
But here is why you might want to reconsider the status quo. Simply put, there are major advantages of leveraging a modern purpose-built investment management platform:
1 | You want to get back to being a GP: You’d rather spend your time refining your strategy, finding and evaluating deals, meeting with investors, and ultimately growing your AUM. |
2 | You want your LPs to have a great experience: Sure, if your deals are good, an investor will walk a thousand miles to bring a check to your door but what if you removed friction and made it easier and enjoyable for them to invest? |
3 | You want to protect against risks, fraud and compliance issues: Well, okay, you probably aren’t thinking about this, but you should be; both as a fiduciary responsibility to your investors and to protect your valuable reputation. |
Administration is Holding You Back
Deals make money. Administration does not. Nobody becomes a GP or Investment Sponsor or gets into private market investing to do all the manual back-office, repetitive, and error-prone tasks. GPs aren't supposed to be chasing people down for wires or having to manually reconcile whose $100,000 wires is whose, because you just received 10 or 100 of them today and nobody knows which one is which.
Administrative burden full of manual tasks
Manual tasks such as preparing capital call notices, reconciling transactions, and tracking investor commitments are incredibly time-consuming and divert fund managers' attention from their core responsibilities of sourcing deals, conducting due diligence, and managing portfolio companies. GPs should be focused on finding great deals, closing those deals, and working with their portfolio to get the best returns for their investors.
Payments & Reconciliation
GPs & Investment Sponsors spend countless hours and costly labor manually raising and deploying capital.
It takes:
Days to prepare & send Capital Call or Distribution notices.
Weeks of waiting & follow-ups to close fundraises.
Days of manually reconciling transactions.
Data Fragmentation & Lack of Centralized Data
With sensitive and critical data scattered across multiple spreadsheets and email threads, it becomes impossible to keep a comprehensive, up-to-date view of fund performance, investor commitments, and other essential information. This can lead to poor decision-making and missed opportunities.
Scalability Limitations As firms grow and manage more deals, investments, and investors, traditional methods become increasingly inefficient and prone to errors, hindering the firm's ability to scale effectively.
Get Back to Being a GP
Leveraging an investment management platform like Verivend can enable you to get back to being a GP and focus on tasks that move the needle.
Outsource & Simplify Administrative Tasks
‘Outsourcing’ your investment management administration to a platform like Verivend significantly reduces the amount of time spent on repetitive, manual, and error-prone tasks.
Verivend’s intuitive suite of software solutions allow GPs and Investment Sponsors to:
Prepare & send capital calls and distribution payments in minutes.
Real-time status updates on your fundraising & automated follow-ups to your LPs.
Spend zero time reconciling transactions.
Accelerate your fundraise with immediate transfers.
No transfer limits or transaction caps.
Eliminate human errors, security risks, and fraud.
Raise & Deploy Capital in Minutes
Verivend eliminates the payments administration tasks that waste your valuable time. Our proprietary payments software means that no one needs to worry about wires or ACH (bank-to bank) transfers. No longer are you constrained by wire fees or the 3-business day wait time and $5- $25K transfer limit of ACH transfers. Verivend is the purpose-built payments financial infrastructure for the private markets.
Mission Control
With all financial data, performance metrics, and investor information consolidated within a single platform, GPs and Investment Sponsors can access comprehensive, up-to-date insights and generate customized reports with ease. Verivend provides a centralized dashboard to manage the raise from start to finish. With Verivend, GPs and Investment Sponsors effortlessly send out all their capital calls, and they can see in real-time how many of their investors have viewed them, how many have funded them, and how many haven't funded them. And the process is fully automated – everything from sending scheduled reminders out to LPs who haven't funded, sending confirmations when incoming funds have been received, to keeping everyone on the same page every step of the way.
Scale your Operations with your AUM
Verivend's platform is designed to support the growth of investment firms, enabling efficient management of increasing deal volumes, investments, and investor bases without compromising data integrity or operational efficiency.
We not only save GPs time, but we also allow them to get back to being GPs. We allow our customers to take charge of their fundraise, breeze through their administrative tasks and get back to doing what they love.
Put down the PDFs and Excel sheets, automate with Verivend, and get back to why you started a fund or sponsoring investments in the first place.
The Solution: Verivend’s Investment Management Platform
Verivend offers a comprehensive platform designed to simplify fund administration and provide a single source of truth for financial data, fund performance metrics, and task tracking. By leveraging Verivend's proprietary payments software, GPs & Investment Sponsors can:
1 | Raise & Deploy Capital Efficiently: Fund managers can prepare and send capital call notices in minutes, receive real-time status updates on their fundraising progress, and automate follow-ups and reminders, eliminating the need for manual tasks and reducing the time spent on administrative tasks. |
2 | Offer a Frictionless Investor Experience: Verivend's platform enables investors to invest with a single click, reducing friction and increasing the likelihood of repeat investments. Additionally, investors no longer need to worry about wire transfers or banking details, as Verivend's secure platform handles all transactions. |
3 | Mitigate your Risks: By maintaining a secure, auditable record of all communications and transactions within the platform, GPs and Investment Sponsors can significantly reduce the risks associated with fraud, human error, and compliance issues. Verivend's platform uses the latest security protocols, including data encryption and Multi-Factor Authentication, to safeguard sensitive information. |
It’s time to bring your dealmaking and capital raising to Verivend. Verivend is the solution that allows you to get back to being a GP, provide your LPs with a great experience, and protects against risks, fraud, and compliance issues.
We welcome GPs and Investment Sponsors at all stages of the investment journey and across all private market asset classes. Experience the immediate benefits of Verivend. You owe it to yourself and your investors. We have de-risked getting started.
Set up and market your deal, open a data room, and onboard your LPs with our institutional-grade platform today!