Wealthtech firm Addepar is pleased to confirm that it has joined the Open Cap Table Coalition, which is a cross-industry group that is focused on enhancing the interoperability, transparency, and portability of “company capitalization data.”
Addepar, along with industry professionals from across the tech and data ecosystem, will work to define and actualize “a publicly available cap table format and data architecture for private companies to track company ownership.” The Coalition’s values are “closely aligned with Addepar’s, focused on bringing transparency and accuracy to the financial industry.”
As mentioned in the update, transparency and portability of data has been “a problem that has plagued the financial industry and, as a result, hindered investors’ ability to clearly understand how their capital is put to work.” Addepar has spent the past 12 years establishing the foundation of a portfolio reporting platform and data network trying “to address this data issue, so it is near and dear to [their] hearts.”
There are more than $3.5 trillion of assets reported on the Addepar platform, offering 700+ independent advisory firms, private banks, family offices, and institutions “a single place to answer questions like, ‘What do I own?’, ‘Where do I own it?’ and ‘How do I own it?'”
Private company investments reportedly make up a considerable percentage of the assets reported on their platform and are “an important piece of how advisors and investors understand overall portfolio exposure and manage investment decisions.” As investor interest in private markets explodes and companies are staying private even longer, “the lack of standardization for capital tables has been particularly opaque and burdensome for the industry at large – resulting in barriers to access and liquidity for investors.”
Standardizing the capitalization format will also “decrease the friction of managing equity holdings and agreeing on weights, measures and values across multiple parties.”
Addepar further noted:
“We launched Marketplace in 2020 with an open architecture model to give our clients the ability to facilitate private transactions in a unified and convenient way by bringing together market participants from multiple sources into a single venue. These capabilities are built on Addepar’s core data platform and deliver efficient access to private company opportunities and liquidity.”
In addition to their alignment with the Open Cap Table Coalition’s company-focused principles of responsibility, choice and collective action, the Wealthtech firm believes that transparency and data “can and should be at the forefront of how investors navigate the private markets.”
The firm also mentioned:
“Addepar’s commitment to the Open Cap Table Coalition is another form of our dedication to our clients and our vision to maximize the positive impact of the world’s capital. We believe that the leaders coming together in this working group to apply technology to the private markets will ultimately help investors and their communities get the best of what the public markets have to offer.”
Please note that Marketplace and its brokerage services “provided by Acervus Securities, an Addepar company and SEC-registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC.”