Private Markets, Fund of Funds & the Future of Wealth Management with Samir Kaji of Allocate
Private markets are moving deeper into wealth management. But access is only part of the equation.
The harder questions are: Which managers should you invest with? How should you construct a private markets portfolio? And when does a fund of funds actually justify another layer of fees?
On this episode of Dakota Live!, Robert Morier sits down with Samir Kaji, Co-Founder and CEO of Allocate, to discuss the rapidly changing intersection of private markets, wealth management, manager selection, and technology.
Samir has spent more than 25 years in and around private markets. Before founding Allocate, he spent nearly 22 years in venture banking at Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank, working with hundreds of venture capital and private equity firms. Today, Allocate serves roughly 400 wealth advisory firms and has approximately $5 billion of assets on its platform.
Our conversation gets directly into an issue facing RIAs, wealth managers, family offices, and private markets allocators: as more capital moves into alternatives, access alone isn't enough.
We discuss why Samir believes manager selection matters so much in private equity and venture capital; why track record can become a trap in due diligence; and how Allocate evaluates emerging managers, spinouts, established firms, and the people actually making the investment decisions.
We also spend time on fund of funds.
Samir makes a compelling case for where the structure can still work: when it saves an investor from making 20 separate allocation decisions, simplifies administration, and provides access to managers or companies an investor would have difficulty accessing independently. In highly dispersed asset classes, that access and manager selection can potentially justify the additional layer of fees.
We also discuss:
• Private markets and the growth of the wealth management channel
• Fund of funds and private markets portfolio construction
• Emerging managers versus established private equity and venture capital firms
• Why track record is only the beginning of manager due diligence
• GP staking and GP seeding
• Co-investments and creative fund structures
• Private markets liquidity and the growth of secondaries
• AI and technology in private markets
• Why storytelling matters when raising a fund
• Why Samir looks for “high agency, low ego” when building a team
Whether you are an allocator evaluating private equity and venture capital managers, an RIA building a private markets program, an emerging manager raising a fund, or simply trying to understand where wealth management and alternatives are heading, there is a lot here.
The harder questions are: Which managers should you invest with? How should you construct a private markets portfolio? And when does a fund of funds actually justify another layer of fees?
On this episode of Dakota Live!, Robert Morier sits down with Samir Kaji, Co-Founder and CEO of Allocate, to discuss the rapidly changing intersection of private markets, wealth management, manager selection, and technology.
Samir has spent more than 25 years in and around private markets. Before founding Allocate, he spent nearly 22 years in venture banking at Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank, working with hundreds of venture capital and private equity firms. Today, Allocate serves roughly 400 wealth advisory firms and has approximately $5 billion of assets on its platform.
Our conversation gets directly into an issue facing RIAs, wealth managers, family offices, and private markets allocators: as more capital moves into alternatives, access alone isn't enough.
We discuss why Samir believes manager selection matters so much in private equity and venture capital; why track record can become a trap in due diligence; and how Allocate evaluates emerging managers, spinouts, established firms, and the people actually making the investment decisions.
We also spend time on fund of funds.
Samir makes a compelling case for where the structure can still work: when it saves an investor from making 20 separate allocation decisions, simplifies administration, and provides access to managers or companies an investor would have difficulty accessing independently. In highly dispersed asset classes, that access and manager selection can potentially justify the additional layer of fees.
We also discuss:
• Private markets and the growth of the wealth management channel
• Fund of funds and private markets portfolio construction
• Emerging managers versus established private equity and venture capital firms
• Why track record is only the beginning of manager due diligence
• GP staking and GP seeding
• Co-investments and creative fund structures
• Private markets liquidity and the growth of secondaries
• AI and technology in private markets
• Why storytelling matters when raising a fund
• Why Samir looks for “high agency, low ego” when building a team
Whether you are an allocator evaluating private equity and venture capital managers, an RIA building a private markets program, an emerging manager raising a fund, or simply trying to understand where wealth management and alternatives are heading, there is a lot here.
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