“Time and time again, private markets outperform in times of volatility…” — Logan Henderson, Founder and CEO, Gridline.
It started with whispers in offices, company happy hours, and Zoom meetings. The startup success wave had been good — great, really — for tech ventures that raised record funding rounds at sky-high valuations. From HealthTech to WorkTech to FinTech, startups solved some of the biggest challenges facing our post-pandemic world. It was fun to watch startups over the last two years. And it was even more fun to be part of one. VC funding was up 4% year-over-year in 2020, hitting a record $335 billion, only to be eclipsed in 2021 by the staggering number of $643 billion.
Founder and CEO Aaron Klein provides his take on the biggest news to hit advisor technology in the previous month.
Private market investing is democratized with new platforms and solutions. Logan Henderson, CEO, and Founder of Gridline shares his practical insights on the fintech arena.
The alternative investing ‘universe’ of private equity, venture capital, or other illiquid assets has long struggled with two problems: It’s expensive to enter and difficult to navigate.
While over $13 trillion is invested in the alternatives space currently, it remains “incredibly opaque” and only available to institutional investors, according to Logan Henderson.
Gridline founder and CEO expects to use the funding to double its head count over the next year, and projects reaching $2 billion of AUM in 2025.
Gridline has closed a $9 million funding round on the heels of launching its digital platform for alternative investments last month. This capital enables the company to accelerate growth by scaling investment, sales and marketing teams to double headcount over the next 12 months.
Investors in this fundraise include family offices; general partners leading venture capital, private equity and real estate funds; and numerous entrepreneurs and executives. Notable participants include David Dorman, board member of CVS, Dell and PayPal, and former CEO of AT&T; Mark Shoberg, former managing director of the University of Texas Investment Management Company and Stanford Management Company; tech unicorn founders David Cummings, founder of Atlanta Ventures and Pardot; Edwin Marcial, founding CTO at Intercontinental Exchange; Kyle Porter, founder and CEO of SalesLoft; Garrett Langley, founder and CEO of Flock Safety; and Sacha Labourey, co-founder of CloudBees. Additional key investors include Tim Kopp, CEO of Terminus; Aaron Stone, senior partner at Apollo Global; and Jon Hallett, board advisor or director to 30+ venture-backed companies. Participating funds include GC&H Investments, the partner fund of Cooley LLP; Ardent Venture Partners, Tech Square Ventures, and BLH Venture Partners.
Early support from these investors reinforces the demand for a platform that revolutionizes alternative asset investing for the estimated 16 million U.S. households that qualify as accredited investors and the RIAs they work with.
“We are targeting $2 billion of AUM in three years to create one of the fastest-growing wealthtech platforms to date,” said Gridline Founder and CEO Logan Henderson. “This new capital and the support of a fantastic group of investors will allow us to approach expansion at full throttle.”
Gridline will grow its investment team with this new funding, bringing in analysts from across sectors and allocation strategies to build multi-asset products that deliver both diversification and access to the world’s top fund managers for individual investors and RIAs. The company is also building out its demand team to provide educational content and thought leadership that brings transparency to a private market space that is historically opaque.
Investors in this round include a diverse group of legal, regulatory, wealth management and asset allocation experts, highlighting the broad appeal of the alternative investments platform and its offerings. These entrepreneurs and operators bring valuable expertise and insightful guidance as Gridline scales.
“Gridline is changing the way the industry offers access to private market investing,” said Dorman. “As individual investors and RIAs seek out this asset class, Gridline’s innovative approach is opening the doors for non-institutional investors to gain entry to previously inaccessible assets.”
About Gridline
Gridline is a first-of-its-kind digital wealth platform that revolutionizes private market investing by providing individual investors with access to top-performing alternative asset managers, enabling them to build diversified portfolios in a matter of minutes through a fully digital experience.
For more information, visit Gridline.co.
Contact:
Morgan Polley
Gregory FCA for Gridline
morgan@gregoryfca.com
610-228-2140
ATLANTA — Today’s launch of Gridline’s alternative asset marketplace revolutionizes access to private market investing, providing greater opportunity for individual investors and wealth managers to invest in top-tier alternative assets and fund managers.
Just as Vanguard introduced index-based investing to public markets in the 1970s, Gridline is introducing index-based investing to private markets, allowing non-institutional investors the most efficient way to gain diversified exposure to historically exclusive and prohibitively expensive private market opportunities.
The global alternatives market is projected to reach $17 trillion by 2025, buoyed by $10 trillion of expected inflows over the next five years. Alternatives offer a great opportunity to generate above-market returns, with the S&P 500 forecasted to deliver a meager 6% average annualized return over the next 10 years. Top quartile alternative investments dwarf that, returning an average of around 19%. Gridline is at the forefront of helping investors realize these returns historically reserved for institutions and endowments in this asset class.
Gridline’s digital wealth platform handles the traditionally cumbersome back-office management of private market investing, from treasury management to tax reporting and transparent performance monitoring, allowing fees to remain low, keeping more money in the investor’s pocket.
“Alternative investments have historically been exclusive to access and difficult to diversify unless you have endowment-level capital to deploy,” said Gridline CEO and Founder Logan Henderson. “We saw a systemic problem between the alternatives marketplace, individual investors and RIAs, and wanted to break down that barrier by building an enterprise-grade wealth tech platform, coupled with a top performing fund of funds.”
The marketplace provides qualified purchasers, accredited investors, RIAs and family offices access to fund managers that have been thoroughly vetted by the Gridline institutional-grade investment team. Investment products will range across all alternative asset classes — including venture capital, private equity, real assets, hedge funds and crypto.
As wealth managers seek low volatility, non-correlated investment opportunities for clients, Gridline provides increased availability for private market allocations to complete a comprehensive portfolio strategy. Among the RIA community, the platform has seen strong early traction, demonstrating interest in top quality thematic multi-manager alternative investment products.
“We know the market is clamoring for access to privileged investment products, appropriate diversification and an overall better user experience,” said Gridline Chairman Jon Hallett. “Gridline’s mission is to deliver the best risk-adjusted long-term investment outcomes by allowing investors the opportunity to emulate what the smartest investors in the world have been doing with their portfolios for the last two decades.”
About Gridline
Gridline is a first-of-its-kind digital wealth platform that revolutionizes private market investing by providing individual investors access to top performing alternative asset managers, enabling them to build diversified portfolios in a matter of minutes in a fully digital experience.
For more information, visit Gridline.co.
Contact:
Haley Rosa
Gregory FCA for Gridline
haley@gregoryfca.com
610-228-2805
Among a growing number of alternative investment platforms, Gridline says its technology and the investments it offers will differentiate the company.
Gridline joins other digital platforms, such as CAIS and iCapital, in providing advisors with better access to alternatives and removing many of the challenges of investing in the private markets.