Episode summary
Solving the Operational Challenges of Private Markets | Ep. 43
Alternative Allocations
· · 30 min · Hosts: Tony Davidow · Guests: Rafay Farooqui
Summary
Private markets investing still suffers from fragmented workflows, paper-heavy subscription documents, slow reporting, and disconnected systems, and Rafay Farooqui argues that the industry needs a true operating system rather than a stack of point solutions. He says Subscribe was built to centralize products, workflows, data, and connections, then standardize them so firms can scale without making advisors think like operations teams.
Farooqui says the common transaction problem spans LPs, GPs, and service providers, but the subscription document is the universal entry point. He describes a broad client base that includes wealth managers, institutions, fund managers, law firms, and fund administrators, with especially complex needs in wirehouses and private banks. For advisors, he says the near-term demand is for one place to research, pre-qualify, approve, and transact across alternatives, including choosing between ticker-based products, drawdown structures, 1099s, and K-1s.
He also says the platform is expanding into education, compliance, sales-kit delivery, and post-trade reporting for K-1s and capital account statements. Looking five years ahead, he expects private markets to become more data-rich, standardized, tokenized, and tradable, with tighter spreads and more secondary-market activity.
Key takeaways
- Farooqui says private markets infrastructure must be centralized and standardized before firms can scale efficiently.
- He says advisors want one interface for education, approvals, search, and transactions across alternatives, including tax-aware products.
- Subscribe now serves 1,200 wealth management firms, 55,000 financial advisors, and 6,000 fund managers, according to Farooqui.
- He says the next wave of demand is post-trade reporting, especially K-1s and capital account statements integrated into portfolio systems.
- Farooqui expects private markets to become more tokenized and more tradable over the next five years.
Notable quotes
“we thought that the industry generally needed a rebuild of the infrastructure that allows it to operate and scale”
“you actually don't have the two things that you actually need to start with to probably solve this, which is centralization and the second is standardization”
“the future looks like everything is priced, it's tokenized, it trades at scale, and you can buy whatever you want at the click of a button”
How the episode opens
This is Alternative Allocations by Franklin Templeton. A monthly podcast where we share practical, relatable advice, and discuss new investment ideas with leaders in the field. Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss an episode. Here is your host, Tony Davidow.
Welcome to the latest episode of the Alternative Allocations podcast series. I'm thrilled to be joined today by Rafae Farooqui, CEO and founder of Subscribe. Welcome, Rafae. — Tony, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. — Well, this is an exciting time for our industry. There's so much going on. But, for those who don't know, maybe give a little bit of background. What is Subscribe and what are you doing?
So, Subscribe was founded in 2015. So, we're coming up on our 11th year in the industry. And the premise behind it was to deliver to the industry as a whole the first modern operating system for managing a private markets program.
And that could be at any type of firm. So, it's a very revolutionary idea, very open architecture. We didn't necessarily build it for wealth managers or institutions or fund managers or fund admins or law firms.
All the type of firms that we serve today, we thought that the industry generally needed a rebuild of the infrastructure that allows it to operate and scale. If you think about industries that innovate, being on paper, being on email, being analog, really cause friction and are a bottleneck to growth. So, we thought, why don't we build the first operating system for private market funds for the entire industry and deliver them a beautiful buy button that works at scale with clicks.
So, that is an ambitious goal. And for somebody who's been in the industry a long time, I do remember the old days.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- private markets infrastructure
- subscription documents
- k1 reporting
- standardization
- alternatives technology
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GS
- UBS
- Subscribe
- CAIS
- Goldman Sachs
- UBS AG
- M.D.C. Holdings Inc.
Watch the episode
Watch “Solving the Operational Challenges of Private Markets | Ep. 43” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Alternative Allocations, this episode and its artwork belong to Franklin Templeton. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
