Monthly Alts Pulse, Ep. 2: Taking the pulse of private markets with Lawrence Calcano, Chairman & CEO of iCapital

Welcome to the 2nd episode of a collaboration between iCapital x Alt Goes Mainstream.

Here’s the latest episode of the Monthly Alts Pulse, a live conversation in studio with Lawrence Calcano, the CEO of iCapital, who as the leader of a platform that is responsible for the majority of individual and advisor-led investment flows into the alts space, has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in private markets.

On this episode, Lawrence and I had a fun and lively discussion. We covered:
  • What iCapital is seeing in the market now.
  • How allocators are balancing strategies that make sense right now versus strategies, like venture, that may pay off in the future.
  • How the alts space has evolved over the past 10 years.
  • How the change in wealth management market structure and the rise of the breakaway broker has driven alts innovation forward.
  • Some of the biggest challenges that iCapital has encountered over the past 10 years of growth.
  • How Lawrence & iCapital have built a platform to serve different clients on the GP and LP sides.
  • How iCapital took inspiration from prior market structure evolutions and innovations, like ETFs and mutual funds.
  • What companies did iCapital look to for inspiration?
  • The importance of UI/UX in B2B financial services — and how does this change with Millennials and Gen Z’s becoming customers or users?
  • Building the desktop real estate for alts.
  • What does a quote from a Dirty Harry movie have to do with the growth of iCapital?
2021