For this week newcomers interview, we exchanged with Julien De Mayer CEO of Fundcraft, a cloud-based platform creating the digital infrastructure helping asset managers to focus on their core business: fundraising and investing.

1 - Please introduce your company and the products/services it offers.

Fundcraft's mission is to revolutionise the fund industry by creating the digital infrastructure for asset managers allowing them to focus on their core business: fundraising and investing.

Our offer is a “digital infrastructure” for the operation of alternative investment funds. We provide asset managers with a cloud-based platform combined with regulatory licenses and the experts operating the platform together with our clients. We cover the full range of Central Administration and third party AIFM services and work with partners to cover the remaining operational needs of our clients’ funds. Our proposition to our clients is that fund operations should be a convenient enabler for their core business through self-service, transparency, speed, and quality.

At present, we have more than €5 billion in assets managed on our platform and employ more than 80 people across our two offices in Luxembourg and Spain.

2 - What led to the creation of your company?

Before founding fundcraft, I worked on the client-side of fund services and became frustrated with the industry's systemic issues. Traditional service providers work in people-based, siloed structures. Each department processes the same information but doesn't use common tools and databases. This results in repetitive information requests and the need to reconcile and consolidate data. Seeing a need for a better, more scalable solution using technology, I created fundcraft to centralize, digitize, and automate back-office operations and promote a new way of working where asset managers gain transparency and control over their fund operations.

3 - What is the most difficult or unexpected thing you've had to overcome on your journey?

Well, the biggest challenge is always changing people’s mindset. Building new technology while operating a business is like assembling a rocket while it is flying. As our platform develops over time, the team and clients regularly face changes, need to learn new processes, and adapt their way of working. This is not easy and creates friction. Sometimes a new feature feels like a step back, but it is actually an advancement in security or quality or it is a necessary step towards further improvement at a later stage. The challenge makes the way more interesting and we promote a constant innovation culture. 

4 - How is your offering different from your competitors and other market players?

There are two main aspects: technology and pricing.

Our custom-built platform serves as a real-time collaborative environment for our clients, fundcraft experts, and our clients’ other stakeholders. This allows for real transparency and control. It enables self-service, parallelisation of work, efficiency gains in all functions, and a central storage of all knowledge related to the clients’ structures. 

Pricing, I believe, needs to be predictable and value-based, which is why we offer one single fixed fee on the fund’s deployed capital. Our goal is to keep invoices simple and fully transparent. 

5 - What did you find at LHoFT ?

LHoFT provides a platform for financial technology professionals to connect, collaborate, and innovate. We see our membership as a great opportunity to be part of a supportive environment where we can access resources, knowledge, and expertise to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the industry and keep enhancing our professional network.

6 - What's next?

Having gained significant traction and established ourselves as a trusted partner in the local market, we plan to expand our offerings to other European markets, such as Germany, France, and Spain. We look forward to serving these markets, which appear to face particular challenges in establishing an efficient operational setup for their funds.