What’s Next For Fund Administration: 2023 Fund Administration Report
Fund administration is a financial service that involves the management and oversight of investment funds, including hedge funds, private equity funds and alternative assets. Fund administrators perform a variety of tasks to ensure that the fund is operating efficiently and in compliance with regulatory requirements. These tasks may include calculating the net asset value of the fund, preparing financial statements, reconciling trades, and performing regulatory reporting.
Fund administration is a common concern of both impact and traditional fund managers. With this project, ICM sought to understand how fund administration currently works at funds, the diversity of current market offerings, what would improve functionality and value from the managers’ perspective, and whether impact funds have unique needs that could be better served by existing or new products and services.
This study employed a mixed-methods approach, including an initial focus group, nine interviews, 38 survey responses, and secondary research.
Download the What’s Next for Fund Administration Report to learn more about ICM’s findings.
“‘A great fund administrator should be an extension of the team.’
When ICM held its first meeting on ‘the back office’ for members last year, this was the most common refrain. Everything from the investor portal, to the data room, to integration with impact and ESG KPIs suggested that the fund administration industry might be ripe for innovation - or even disruption. How can fund admins learn from the experience of impact fund managers to build a more seamless suite of services and address gaps in the market? ”
“An important part of the type of fund administrator we work with has to do with values alignment. We are a mission-driven organization as an impact investment firm and we certainly want a partner who respects and appreciates that and wants to help us grow in that regard.”
About the Author
Lauren Washington is the cofounder and CEO of Fundr, a platform that uses data and AI to empower decision making in seed investing.
Prior to this, Lauren cofounded Black Women Talk Tech, the largest membership organization and only conference for black women founders and KeepUp, an automated social listening platform. While at Black Women Talk Tech, she spearheaded the Face of a Founder report, the largest research at the time into black women tech founders.
Her companies have won multiple awards including 43North, the Advanced Imaging Society’s Distinguished Leadership Award and the Austin Inno Fire Award. She has been featured in The New York Times, TechCrunch, Elle, Inc and Fortune and has been listed as a top entrepreneur in Essence Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, CIO Magazine, the ForbesNEXT1000 list and Austin Black Business Journal’s 40 Under 40.
Lauren started her career as a special education teacher with Teach for America and went on to develop marketing and data strategy for over 100 global companies at InStyle Magazine, TVGuide and Omnicom Group. She has her BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.