fundcraft is a newcomer to the LHoFT. Founder & CEO Julien De Mayer tells us more about the company.
Can you pitch your startup in a few words?
fundcraft‘s mission is to revolutionise the fund industry by creating the digital infrastructure for asset managers allowing them to focus on their core business: fundraising and investing.
To achieve this, we are developing and operating our proprietary platform that fully centralises all fund back-office operations and stakeholders. This generates efficiency, transparency, and control for our clients in their day-to-day fund operations. Being a CSSF-licensed AIFM and central administrator, we co-operate our platform with our clients providing them with the necessary expertise and regulatory compliance they need. We are the natural partner of venture capital and funds of funds, as well as asset managers “democratising” the access to private equity.
Why did you decide to create this company?
Before founding fundcraft, I worked on the client side of fund services and became frustrated with the industry’s systemic issues. Traditional service providers work in people-based, siloed structures. Each department processes the same information but doesn’t use common tools and databases. This results in repetitive information requests and the need to constantly reconcile and consolidate data. Seeing a need for a better, more scalable solution using technology, I created fundcraft to build a digital infrastructure for asset managers supporting a centralisation, digitalisation, and automation of back-office operations and promote a new way of working where asset managers gain transparency and control over their fund operations.
What are your product(s)/service(s) and your business model?
In essence, we only have one product: a “digital infrastructure” for the operation of alternative investment funds. We provide asset managers with a cloud-based platform combined with regulatory licences and the experts operating the platform together with our clients. We cover the full range of Central Administration and third party AIFM services, and work with partners to cover the remaining operational needs of our clients’ funds. Our proposition to clients is that fund operations should be a convenient enabler for their core business through self-service, transparency, speed, and quality.
How is your offering different from your competitors and other market players?
There are two main aspects: technology and pricing.
Our custom-built platform serves as a real-time collaborative environment for our clients, fundcraft experts, and our clients’ other stakeholders. This allows for real transparency and control. It enables self-service, parallelisation of work, efficiency gains in all functions, and a central storage of all knowledge related to the clients’ structures.
Pricing, we believe, needs to be predictable and value-based, which is why we offer one single fixed fee on the fund’s deployed capital. Our goal is to keep invoices simple and fully transparent.
Why did you decide to join the LHoFT?
LHoFT provides a platform for financial technology professionals to connect, collaborate, and innovate. We see our membership as a great opportunity to be part of a supportive environment where we can access resources, knowledge, and expertise to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the industry and keep enhancing our professional network.
What’s next?
Having gained significant traction and established ourselves as a trusted partner in the local market, we plan to expand our offerings to other European markets, such as Germany, France, and Spain. We look forward to serving these markets, which appear to face particular challenges in establishing an efficient operational setup for their funds.
