The business of collecting, processing and reporting on investments in alternative areas such as private equity, hedge funds and real estate has expanded rapidly as capital has flowed into these areas over the past two decades.

Canoe Intelligence, the US fintech firm working with wealth managers, capital allocators and other firms, has notched up a major client in the form of US-listed asset management house State Street.

State Street is to implement a cloud-based, machine-learning technology to transform private markets processing and document management. 

Canoe’s open application programming interface (API) will integrate with State Street’s technology. It helps users to identify unique patterns as documents are processed that are created from shared intelligence. Clients can digest such material more quickly, State Street said in a statement this week. Within seconds of putting the Canoe system into use, unstructured data can be turned into accessible information, saving clients time and freeing up asset managers so that they can concentrate on more important tasks.

“State Street prioritises making investments in the solutions that will allow our clients to focus their time and attention on their core competencies, such as alpha generation,” Jennifer Tribush, global head of alternatives product solutions for State Street, said. “With Canoe’s focus on alternative investments, we are able to further digitise our reporting capabilities for both general partners and limited partners.”

“We understand the difficulties those in the financial services industry face in dealing with a plethora of documents and onerous processes,” Jason Eiswerth, CEO of Canoe Intelligence, said. 

Winning the contract with State Street is a coup for Canoe. Based in Boston, State Street had $40.3 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration and $3.6 trillion in assets under management as of 31 March 2021.

In March, Canoe opened a new office in London and added to its team as part of a European build-out.

The firm competes with organisations such as Private Client Resources, among others. The business of collecting, processing and reporting on investments in alternative areas such as private equity, hedge funds and real estate has expanded rapidly as capital has flowed into these areas over the past two decades. Low yields on listed equities and government bonds amid ultra-low interest rates have fuelled the popularity of private markets. However, these areas have traditionally been challenging for wealth managers seeking to report back to clients.