Episode summary
Monthly Alts Pulse Ep 11: Taking the pulse of private markets with iCapital's Dan Vene, iCapital
Alt Goes Mainstream
· · Hosts: Michael Sidgmore · Guests: Dan Vene
Summary
Dan Vene argues that private markets became compelling to him after living through the 2000 bust and the long stretch of disappointing public-market returns that followed. He says private capital gives investors more control over diversification, correlations, timing, and outcomes than public equities, where prices are driven by other people’s trading. He also says most people should still keep the majority of their wealth in public index funds, but pair that with a meaningful private-markets sleeve for income and downside protection.
A major theme is liquidity. Dan Vene says investors often overvalue liquidity and then underperform because they trade on fear and greed. He points to semi-liquid fund structures, especially interval and tender-offer vehicles, as a practical middle ground for many investors, while longer-duration funds can still suit qualified buyers seeking higher returns.
The conversation then turns to iCapital Marketplace, which he says was built from client demand on both sides of the platform. He argues that technology has become the business itself, making private markets easier to access, diligence, administer, and report on. He expects evergreen funds, model portfolios, and better LP-friendly structures to help shift private markets from being mainly “sold” to increasingly “bought.”
Key takeaways
- Dan Vene says the 2000s taught him that private markets can help investors avoid the volatility and behavioral mistakes common in public markets.
- He argues that liquidity is often overrated, and that interval funds and tender-offer structures can give investors a useful compromise between access and return.
- Dan Vene says Marketplace was created because issuers wanted broader distribution and wealth managers wanted access to more offerings in one place.
- He says evergreen funds are gaining traction because they lower barriers for advisers and let managers build more durable capital bases.
- Dan Vene believes the biggest successful managers on Marketplace stick to their mandate, underpromise, and avoid strategy drift.
Notable quotes
“you can pick your diversification. You can pick your correlations. You can pick your outcomes much better than you can in the public markets”
“the importance or the value people place on liquidity is often winds up resulting in a less, you know, optimal outcome because they use that liquidity to to oftentimes make poor decisions”
“I think we're at an inflection point in the market where alts are going to become more bought”
How the episode opens
Welcome back to the monthly alts pulse. I'm Michael Sigmore, co-founder and partner of Broad Haven Ventures and founder of the Alqua Mainstream podcast. Today I'm here with I Capital co-founder and managing partner Dan Benet.
Dan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Michael. Enjoying looking forward to the conversation.
Likewise. Well, I want to go back in time because you've really seen this from the beginning and even your background before I Capital. Sometimes I think that the the dots always connect and make sense afterwards.
So, I'd love to hear a bit about your background before. Sure. As a placement agent, starting a technology company, all of that, and then how that kind of has come to bear in terms of I Capital and now marketplace.
Sure. Uh well, I think a lot of what has informed my career and some of the decisions I've made uh has been the timing around I came out of undergradu uh 1997. So started out on Wall Street as a as a bond trader and as you know back then the markets were pretty wild.
They were actually very similar to how they are today. Um certain tech companies were going up 100 plus% a year. Um and it it felt odd to me, right?
like that that whole dynamic and you know it was it was completely contradictory to everything I had read from Warren Buffett and all the academic work I had done at at undergrad around valuations and such. Um, and so I I established kind of a variant perception on the markets early on. And I think that's actually led me towards the private markets and and informed a lot of the decisions that I've made throughout my career.
That led me to starting a uh a database company called earnings.com uh which was a really was an event uh and earnings database aggregator corporate events upgrades, downgrades, splits, dividends, etc.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- private markets evolution
- icapital marketplace
- liquidity in private markets
- public vs private investing
- technology-enabled access to alternatives
Companies and tickers mentioned
- iCapital
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Alt Goes Mainstream, this episode and its artwork belong to Michael Sidgmore. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
