Two investment-focused companies from London, one a wealthtech platform and the other a private-equity firm – teamed up to enable the wealthtech to operate in Australia, thus completing its buildout in Asia Pacific.
The wealthtech is S64 Capital Innovation, a specialist in alternative investments. Founded in 2021, it works with private banks to help their wealthy customers access a plethora of alts and structured products.
The PE company, Hg, invests in European and North American software and services businesses. It has $65 billion of funds under management across 50 portfolio companies, all of which develop software to help enterprises automate.
Into Asia
Thomas Hu, S64’s head of APAC, based in Hong Kong, says the firm launched its Asia expansion following a Series A in summer 2024. The amount raised was not disclosed. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank and New York-based HPS Investment Partners led the round.
Since then, S64 has opened in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul and Bangkok. With each new market has come complexities: regulations, legal requirements, bespoke operations, and infrastructure.
For a wealthtech, being able to open an office and work with both sides of the industry – alternative fund managers and private banks – was straightforward.
Until it looked at Australia.
Down-under detour
“We needed a unique legal vehicle to put our products to the Australian market,” said Tarun Nagpal, S64’s founder and CEO. “A technology platform there must integrate with local infrastructure.” That included fund administration and transfer agency (maintaining the registry of investors).
Although S64 handles plenty of operational complexity, this presented a different set of requirements. To solve Australia, it teamed up with Hg. The PE firm has a fund called Hg Fusion. That vehicle expanded to Australia through a locally domiciled unit trust.
The partnership goes back to 2023. S64 is a tech platform that connects alternative managers – private equity, private credit, venture capital, real estate, infrastructure – with the gatekeepers to private wealth, including private banks and third-party asset managers.
Platform wealth
The wealthtech relies on software to manage the complexities of this business. These include operating various channels for investors to access products, including feeder funds and structured notes. It also has digital add-ons to help private banks onboard their customers, manage compliance, and market the products. It also has tech to handle capital calls, redemption gates, and the documentation around subscriptions and redemptions, including in many local languages.
Digitizing all of these jobs enables S64 to scale, but it wouldn’t have the capacity to deal with regulations that require an entirely new structure. When it faced that in Australia, it found a partner.
“We could have solved this if we were a bank, but we want to remain independent and not compete with internal products or against other banks,” Nagpal said.
Rather, he positions S64 as helping private banks become more digital. Depending on their capabilities they can integrate into S64’s platform via APIs. S64 wants their customer data. In return it provides insights into aggregate investor behavior and demand. Banks can use this to enhance their own reviews of their salespeople and relationship managers.
“We’re at the early stages of unlocking the real power of data that transits through the platform,” Nagpal said.
Hg helps out
Hg, as a PE firm, is already using S64 to distribute its funds. Now it can market its other products to Australian private banks and family offices through S64. Hg Fusion is meant to be an ‘evergreen’ fund, with no fixed end date, designed to give investors a long-term exposure to private companies. It will market this via S64 to investors in Australia and regionally.
Looking ahead, Hu says Asia is the focus of growth for the wealthtech. It regards Hong Kong and Singapore as core booking centers, while SMTB is its institutional backer in Japan. Hu says the firm has signed up several private bank partners in Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan.
The wealthtech is taking on large global platforms that also connect investors with alternative assets. S64’s business is for Europe and Asia. Its European rival is Moonfare. The biggest player in the field is US-based iCapital, which is also growing in Asia.
“We’re the newest player but we have the biggest international platform,” Nagpal said. “We’re already dominant within the client base we target.”
He declined to quantify the company’s assets under management.
