We sit down with a 30-year veteran of the alternatives investment space about the challenges and positives that it presents.

This news service recently interviewed Mark Woolhouse, CEO and co-founder of Treble Peak, an investment platform. The business provides access for investors, wealth managers, family offices and private banks to European venture capital and private equity investment opportunities.

Woolhouse has plenty of experience: He’s worked for more than three decades in financial and professional services, specialising in capital raising, corporate strategy, M&A, financing and accounting. Woolhouse founded Treble Peak in 2022. Prior to this, he worked with several private equity-backed firms. In earlier years (2007 to 2017), he was chief financial officer and chief operating officer at Dexion Capital – an alternatives investment platform. 

With private market investing being all the rage these days, WealthBriefing wanted to speak to someone about the sector, and how compliance, new technologies and market shifts were affecting it. We talked about access, understanding how private markets have evolved, specific investment experiences, and more.

Q: What does Treble Peak do and what is its mission?
Woolhouse: Treble Peak was founded to meet a clear market need: simplifying access to private markets for non-institutional investors. The platform makes it easier for professional investors, fund managers, and wealth managers to invest, operate, and scale in private markets. By providing access to opportunities from top-tier private market funds in a fully-digital and efficient environment, Treble Peak delivers a seamless investment experience for its clients.

Q: From our understanding, you worked on three broad areas: building software to make private markets investment more efficient and less clunky; developing a filter to find quality fund managers and remove those who don’t make the grade; and third, bringing investors and funds together in ways that fit with AML, KYC and other necessary controls. Where are you on this journey?
Woolhouse: First, on building the proprietary software to make private markets investment more efficient and less clunky: we have developed a fully digital platform that manages the entire investment journey.  From efficient onboarding and subscriptions, through capital calls, distributions, and reporting, everything is streamlined to deliver a seamless user experience for both investors and fund managers.

Second, on developing a filter to find quality fund managers: our investment team applies an institutional-level selection process across multiple strategies and geographies. Treble Peak only works with top-tier managers that meet our investment philosophy, so investors gain access to a curated set of high-quality private market funds.

Third, on bringing investors and funds together within the right controls: our technology enables fund managers to pool smaller investors from €50,000 ($59,054), specifically targeting elective professional investors. The platform ensures full compliance with AML, KYC, and all regulatory requirements, bridging the gap between managers and investors while opening new channels of capital.

Q: TP creates collective buying power for lots of individual investors so that they can have institutional-level pricing, etc. Can you explain how this works?
Woolhouse: Treble Peak creates collective buying power through our aggregator solution. By pooling smaller investors into a single nominee, Treble Peak can reduce the fund minimum (often €1 million or greater) to as little as €50,000. The Treble Peak nominee is a dedicated pooling arrangement, which acts as a single LP in the fund, giving investors access to opportunities that would otherwise be out of reach.

Q: In what ways does technology make a business such as Treble Peak possible that would not have been the case, say, 20 years ago?
Woolhouse: Twenty years ago, a business like Treble Peak would not have been possible, the core infrastructure simply was not there. Secure digital onboarding, e-signatures, online transactions, and cloud-based reporting tools were either non-existent or in their infancy. At the same time, private markets were viewed as the preserve of large institutions, with little incentive to innovate around access or minimums.

The broader fintech revolution changed that. Digital payments, online banking, and regulatory tech have normalised seamless, secure financial transactions at scale, while investor expectations have shifted towards simplicity and transparency. Treble Peak builds on these advances to bring private markets into the same digital age, creating access and efficiency that simply were not imaginable two decades ago.

Q: Treble Peak has three types of clients: investors (HNW individuals, UHNW individuals, families), private wealth managers, and fund managers. Of the three, which have been growing the fastest relative to the whole? 
Woolhouse: Fund managers have been the fastest-growing segment of our client base. We are seeing strong and rising demand from GPs who are seeking innovative ways to access private capital. Many fund managers are using our aggregator solution to pool smaller tickets from their own network alongside Treble Peak’s growing investor base.

Wealth managers are also gaining momentum, especially across Europe. Their clients increasingly view private markets as both a source of enhanced returns and an important tool for portfolio diversification, which has driven steady uptake of our platform in this segment.

Q: The Treble Peak website says you can accept minimum ticket sizes from investors at €50,000. Would you say therefore that this is an offering aimed at HNW individuals?
Yes, our platform is designed for HNW individuals and UHNW individuals, either investing directly or through their wealth manager, as well as family offices. This segment has historically been underserved in private markets, despite representing circa 25 per cent of all potential investment capital. By lowering minimums to €50,000, Treble Peak has opened access to opportunities that were previously out of reach, allowing these investors to participate in the growth of private companies.

That said, we do not believe private markets are necessarily the right solution for the mass affluent or retail market. The illiquid and long-term nature of these investments means that they are best suited to investors with the right profile, time horizon, and level of sophistication – which is why our focus remains on HNW and UHNW investors and family offices.

Q: What is your fee model and how are fees typically calculated? 
Woolhouse: Treble Peak typically charges a modest annual fee for ongoing reporting and custody (for the third-party custodian) to investors ordinarily, while fund managers pay a modest upfront fee for third capital introductions and onboarding. The nominee structure keeps costs low and is aligned on both sides, ensuring that Treble Peak’s incentives are tied to providing a seamless experience for investors and fund managers alike.

Q: What would you say are some of the main challenges for the wealth industry today that TP is solving in the UK? 
Woolhouse: Wealth managers in the UK are under growing pressure to deliver differentiated investment opportunities to clients while keeping portfolios resilient. One of the main challenges is accessing private markets in a way that is both practical and scalable. Historically, the high minimums, complex administration, and fragmented access points have made this asset class difficult to incorporate into client portfolios.

Treble Peak removes these barriers. By lowering minimum ticket sizes to €50,000 and digitising the full investment process, it is easier for wealth managers to integrate private markets into their offering without adding operational burden.  

Q: We hear a lot of complaints and talk about the importance of “access” to private market investment, and this is a major issue with more firms going private, de-listing, not going to IPO, etc. How big a challenge is this for all investors?
Woolhouse: Access to private markets has become one of the defining challenges for investors. Companies no longer need to list to raise capital, and many choose not to. While an IPO can bring visibility, the regulatory burden, disclosure requirements, and costs often outweigh the benefits. As a result, more companies are staying private for longer or never listing at all. In the US, for example, 87 per cent of firms with revenue over $100 million remain private.

This shift has reshaped the investment landscape. Where once public markets gave investors exposure to the growth of leading companies, that growth is increasingly happening behind closed doors. Institutional investors and family offices have already adapted by making private markets a core part of diversified portfolios. For HNW individuals, the challenge is even sharper: without access, they risk missing entire segments of wealth creation.

Giving HNWIs exposure to top-tier private market funds is no longer a “nice to have,” it is essential if they want to keep pace with how value is being created in today’s economy.

Q: Have there been particularly significant clients and partners you have onboarded/worked with recently whose identities can be disclosed? 
Woolhouse: A good example is our partnership with Headway Capital on their latest fundraise, HIP V. Headway was targeting €500 million with a €1 million minimum investment. That created two challenges: many of their existing investors from earlier funds would have been excluded, and new investors or wealth managers with smaller pools of clients could only bring limited capital directly. At the same time, Headway wanted to avoid increasing its cap table or taking on the burden of managing dozens of smaller-ticket investors.

Through Treble Peak, all investors below €1 million were seamlessly onboarded and pooled via our nominee structure, which acted as the single LP. Investors subscribed digitally within minutes through a Headway-branded portal, while we managed all reporting, capital calls, and investor communications on Headway’s behalf.

The results were powerful. More than €33 million raised from 125 investors across 18 countries. Headway not only maintained access for long-standing supporters but also unlocked new capital from wealth managers and private clients, all without adding operational complexity.

Q: There are a lot of pressures and difficulties in the UK economy right now, and yet the need for small, medium-sized enterprises etc to gain access to capital and for investors to tap into this has been as strong as ever. What is your outlook for the sector?
Despite the current pressures in the UK economy, the outlook for private markets remains highly resilient. The UK continues to produce world-class talent and innovation across sectors such as AI, biotech, and fintech. These industries require risk capital to commercialise breakthrough ideas, and private markets are playing a critical role in helping them scale into globally competitive businesses. This, in turn, supports productivity and much-needed economic growth.

At the same time, global dynamics are reshaping capital flows. While turbulence in the US has created uncertainty, Europe is increasingly seen as a stable and attractive destination for investment, with strong emphasis on innovation, sustainability, and long-term value creation. Treble Peak is already seeing this translate into growing confidence and capital commitments from US investors into the region.