It also plans to open its first office in Australia to ride the wave of rising demand for alternative assets
[SINGAPORE] iCapital, a Temasek-backed fintech platform focusing on alternative investments, is growing its operations in Singapore and Hong Kong to cater to an expanding appetite for the asset class.
Marco Bizzozero, iCapital’s head of international, told The Business Times: “We are in the process of relocating to a significantly larger office in Singapore, having outgrown our current space due to rapid team expansion and increased client activity. We are also looking into a bigger office space in Hong Kong.”
The New York-based company employs about 30 staff in Singapore, who make up half its Asian headcount. It is looking to recruit more sales staff in both markets, he said.
iCapital, which has an office in Tokyo, is also planning to open its first office in Australia.
The firm is hoping to capture the rising allocations by wealth managers to alternative assets such as private equity and structured products, as investors seek to diversify away from public markets.
High net-worth individuals are deploying more of their wealth to alternative assets, as part of a structural and long-term shift, Bizzozero said.
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“The wealth management channel is still at the very beginning of integrating private markets in client portfolios. Current allocations to private markets by the wealth management channel are low – on average 3 per cent – yet most wealth managers now target allocations (of) between 10 and 20 per cent, resulting in significant opportunities for firms like iCapital.”
Rising platform assets
In Asia, senior private bankers said their clients are increasingly viewing private markets as a core part of their portfolios, allocating as much as 15 per cent to them. If this trend continues, the total assets under management in private markets by such individuals, each with a net worth of US$10 million, could hit US$1.39 trillion in Asia by 2028, going by a back-of-the-envelope estimate by BT.
The sum was derived from data in Knight Frank’s 2025 Wealth Report, which forecasts the number of these wealthy Asia-based individuals to grow to 928,722 in 2028.
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The rising investment flows are mirrored in the value of alternative assets that iCapital’s platform services. Asian investors accounted for about US$20 billion, or 7.4 per cent, of the US$272.1 billion globally as at August. Last December, these figures were, respectively, US$14 billion and US$214 billion.
The growth is also helping iCapital access funding. In July, it raised more than US$820 million from a funding round co-led by T Rowe Price Associates, T Rowe Price Investment Management and SurgoCap Partners.
Temasek, which has invested in iCapital since before 2021, raised its commitment in the round, bringing the fintech firm’s valuation past US$7.5 billion.
iCapital said then it would use the new funding to “support strategic acquisitions”.
The company has been actively acquiring companies since its founding in 2013. These include its acquisition of Bank of Singapore’s in-house private market feeder fund platform in 2022.
Bizzozero declined to comment on the likely targets in Asia in the next three to five years.
However, he said that iCapital would soon be able to offer a secondary market solution to clients through its investment in Tangible Markets. Announced in September, iCapital said it would also partner with Tangible, without disclosing the amount it invested.
Tangible’s platform focuses on the secondary market, in which private equity (PE) funds buy existing interests or assets from primary PE investors.
PE fund managers create liquidity by leaning on the secondary market, where investors can exit early from their commitments by selling to players such as other fund managers, institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.