Asian fundraising platform Alta mulls secondaries fund launch

Singapore-headquartered fundraising platform Alta is eyeing a secondaries fund launch within the next two years, according to managing director and head of fund management Lee Lian Foo.

“We are exploring a secondary-focused fund… in the upcoming one or two years,” Foo told Secondaries Investor. “We are actually exploring the possibility of setting up… a corporate partnering, or collaborating with another GP who has a good track record to allow us to work together to participate in some of these opportunities.”

While it is still in the early stages of discussion, Foo noted the fund may focus on two major geographies: the US and Southeast Asia. To that end, Alta has been in talks with a US-based secondaries fund and another partner focused on Southeast Asia investments to discuss a potential collaboration, she said.

According to Foo, about 60 to 70 percent of Alta’s clients are Asia-based, with Singapore being the key geography. Other investors are based out of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, with some from North and South Asia. “The rest would be global. We do have US investors as well, but I think our stronghold is still very much focused on Asia,” she said.

There is limited data available on Asia-Pacific individual investors’ appetite for the asset class. Nevertheless, a growing number of secondaries managers are attempting to capture private wealth capital. According to public filings, fundraising platform Moonfare launched Moonfare Secondary Fund in Luxembourg earlier this year, Secondaries Investor reported at the time. Coller Capital, meanwhile, is set to launch an evergreen secondaries fund targeting high-net-worth individuals.

“Secondaries is becoming quite a flavour and we are also gaining a lot of ground,” Foo said. “There’s appetite for opportunities globally, especially in the secondaries space in the US, where the capital market tends to be a little bit deeper and there’s a lot more churn and [activity] happening.

“Having said that, Southeast Asia and Asia are still up-and-coming markets where investors see pockets of opportunity that they can take advantage of – with a rising income of populations, with the growth in the fintech market.”

Formerly known as Fundnel, Alta was co-founded by Khai Lin Sng, Kelvin Lee and Benjamin Twoon in 2016. The platform offers individual investors access to alternatives, including direct and fund investments in early- to late-stage private companies, luxury assets and real estate. It also engages in thematic investments such as whiskey and the arts.

The platform previously partnered with Hamilton Lane for its Senior Credit Opportunities Fund.

Alta is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and also offers tokenised assets, granting investors more flexibility in access to alternatives. According to its website, Alta has completed over $600 million worth of transactions to date, with an average deal size of $10 million. Average ticket size for individuals ranges from $50,000 to $100,000.