Three companies have teamed up to launch a global asset management platform for ultra high net worth clients, designed to make investments such as global direct private equity more accessible.

US Advisory Group, a multi-family office, Maxis Capital, an alternative asset management firm, and Kendell & Associates, a venture banking and advisory firm, have together formed the Smart Capital Alliance.

The platform focuses on ensuring that family investments, planning, and philanthropic goals improve investors' “Family Wealth Risk Index,” the firms say. This is a measure they have developed, intended to capture factors such as generating wealth across generations, maintaining a sense of purpose within the family, and achieving philanthropic goals in emerging markets. Specifically, the SCA says a key to achieving this is through engagement in alternative investments.

“Many of the Alliance's clients are highly successful entrepreneurs who have built their wealth through an operating entity. These individuals expect their advisors to provide them with investments outside of the public equity and debt markets and want to influence their investments to leverage success,” the SCA says.

"Our clients have created significant wealth, but when they come to us they are adrift because their other advisors are beholden to a constrained system and ignore family purpose," said John O'Callaghan, managing director of US Advisory Group.

Part of the new offering is access to Maxis Direct Investment Vehicles, which Maxis says allows investors to be active in global direct private equity investment opportunities, “without layers of funds and blind pools."

The SCA is also promoting co-ordination between philanthropic and capital ventures, creating what it terms a “Philanthro-Capital” approach, by creating partnerships to facilitate the outreach of philanthropic initiatives globally.