iCapital and Envestnet announced an expansion of their strategic partnership, enabling Envestnet’s advisor users to access alternative investments and structured products on the iCapital platform via Envestnet’s UMA capabilities.
Previously, advisors could use single sign-on to connect to iCapital for data sharing and reporting. The new functionality allows them to pull investments acquired through iCapital directly into a UMA on Envestnet’s platform.
“The end goal is to make a more seamless experience available to our joint clients,” said Dana D’Auria, co-CIO and group president at Envestnet Solutions. “The wealth managers, the advisors who want to create public/private models, are still in a lot of ways forced to go to different platforms to do different things. This functionality is intended to create a more seamless experience so that when you purchase your private market solutions, you are able to see them and interact with them within the UMA program, where the rest of your holdings are.”
Earlier this year, Envestnet made interval funds available through its UMA platform. Last year, it also struck deals with BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, State Street Global Advisors and Fidelity to develop custom investment portfolios for advisors using its platform.
Envestnet users accessing the iCapital platform can now invest in the full menu of its alternative and structured product options, including private equity, private credit, private real estate and private infrastructure, according to Steve Houston, managing director and head of iCapital Solutions.
While advisors have long used UMAs to manage clients’ traditional investments, their use for alternative products is a fairly recent trend, given their more complex subscription and liquidity requirements, Houston said.
However, iCapital executives have made it clear they view UMAs as one of the main ways to help advisors incorporate alternatives into client portfolios. Over the past two years, iCapital has struck multiple partnerships, also making its alternative investments on its platform available through UMAs with GeoWealth and Vestmark.
From Envestnet’s perspective, the move is also part of a broader industry-wide push by traditional TAMPs to expand access to private markets and integrate them into UMAs and model portfolios. In October, Vestmark expanded its partnership with alternative investment platform CAIS, combining its UMA structure with CAIS’s access to private funds. Last year, Wells Fargo also added alternative investment options to its UMA platform. And SMArtX Advisory Solutions integrated semi-liquid alternative investments into its UMA platform. AssetMark also launched private market investment options, including strategies from Apollo, Carlyle, KKR and StepStone Group. In addition, InvestCloud launched a Private Markets Account Network, an initiative combining public and private assets within a single platform.
It also comes amid the growing use of UMAs. According to the most recent data from research firm Cerulli Associates, over the five years ending in 2024, UMAs experienced a compounded annual growth rate of 18.7%, reaching $257.7 billion in net flows, the highest level in the managed account universe.
“Our mission has always been to help financial advisors more seamlessly incorporate alternative investments into their portfolios. One of the primary applications financial advisors use to manage client portfolios is the UMA wrapper. Incorporating alternatives into the UMA wrapper is quite new, and our ability to partner with people like Envestnet, who offer that UMA functionality, is really important to us,” Houston said.