US-based alternative investments fintech Dynamo Software has just released the results of a new survey from emerging managers entitled Trends, Challenges, & Insights. 

A new Dynamo Fontline Insight Report reveals trends in investment, talent, and technology plans among emerging managers over the next 12 months, showing that they plan to invest in headcount and fintech for faster growth in 2023.

The findings come on the heels of two additional pieces of Dynamo-led primary research, an October 2022 survey of Limited Partners (LPs) and asset allocators and a February 2023 survey of General Partners (GPs).

Throughout March 2023, Dynamo surveyed leaders across the global emerging manager marketplace. Participants represented a diverse set of funds, including private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, corporate development, real estate, fixed income, small-cap public equity, and private credit.

“The emerging managers we surveyed have a clear vision for moving quickly from scrappy upstarts to industry titans,” said Dynamo Software CEO Hank Boughner. “Despite the market’s ebbs and flows, they are aggressively pursuing healthy returns and hunting for both unicorns and camels,” he added.

The research, contextualised in the Dynamo Frontline Insight Report, uncovered several investment, talent and technology strategies being deployed by emerging managers.

Top talent priority for growth      
To be successful in a tough economic climate, the survey shows that emerging managers are prioritising the acquisition of top talent. Survey participants named “increased internal headcount” as the top area of investment to drive fundraising efforts over the next 12 months.

Like their larger GP counterparts, emerging managers do not seem likely to source fee revenue for additional dollars to pay top talent, the survey adds. The same percentage (88 per cent) of GPs Dynamo polled in February and emerging managers polled in March also indicated that their fee structure would remain the same over the next 12 months.

Rather, cost reduction appears to be the go-to strategy, the firm continued. Creating efficiencies and optimising workflows, overall cost and empowering the whole team to leverage tech topped the list of reasons emerging managers are implementing technology. Operationally, removing manual data tasks and introducing automated workflows ranked as the top priority, the firm said.

FinTech strategy       
Following “increased internal headcount,” two other key areas for investment were “third-party data providers” and “technology platforms.”

“It was validating to learn that emerging managers see value in fintech and data partners,” said Boughner. “It’s what drives our team to iterate continuously and rapidly, as there are new types and sources of data available each day. In close consultation with our clients, we identify and integrate that data rapidly. Perhaps, as importantly, we invest in development that facilitates the smoother flow of data throughout the emerging manager’s tech stack, which is getting higher by the minute.”

Given the prioritisation of data and fintech, emerging managers indicated they will not pull back on their tech budgets. In fact, more than half expect tech budgets to increase over the next 12 months, the survey reveals. Another 48 per cent said their budgets would stay the same.

The three solutions that received the most votes for future inclusion in the emerging manager tech stack were fundraising and marketing solutions, deal management and CRM and investor relations” solutions, the survey shows.

Weighing investors’ ESG focus      
With Deutsche Bank, Bloomberg, and PWC all similarly projecting ESG assets to exceed $100 trillion in five years, more than four out of 10 emerging managers surveyed by Dynamo expect investors will increase ESG and DEI reporting expectations over the next 12 months.

This may be due to the type of investor emerging managers are finding success with, beyond the go-to institutional investors. Over the last 12 months, a large number of emerging managers raised the most capital from the private wealth segment, with 32 per cent raising the most from high net worth individuals and 21 per cent raising the most from family offices.

“Institutional investors will continue to be a core category of investment in emerging managers, but as more disclosure requirements come about and the barriers to obtaining data gets lower, private investors will receive more benchmarks and be empowered to ask more questions,” explained Danielle Pepin, Dynamo’s head of product, portfolio monitoring and valuation.  “Although the layers of fiduciary duty and external accountability are fewer for private wealth, progress against targets still needs to be reported, and these targets increasingly include non-financial metrics. Family offices, especially, are eager for data to demonstrate the success of their ESG- and DEI-focused investments,” she continued.

Still, investors trusting emerging managers with their money are exercising caution when it comes to early opportunities. Just 13 per cent of those investors are willing to allocate more than 75 per cent of their capital to new investment vehicles. About six in 10 investors will allocate no more than 25 per cent of their capital to new vehicles, the survey reveals.

Dynamo Software is a global, end-to-end cloud software platform for the alternatives ecosystem, with operations across North America, EMEA, APAC, and the UAE.