Behind the Waterfall: Oliver Freigang

In this edition of Behind the Waterfall, we speak with Oliver Freigang, Co-Founder and CEO of qashqade. Eight years after being told by the industry that automating carry calculations was impossible, Oliver reflects on what drove him to prove it wrong and what still keeps him restless. He shares his unfiltered views on transparency, Excel orthodoxy, the hype around AI, and what it actually takes to build a high-performance team across multiple countries. He also looks ahead: at where private markets is heading, what qashqade needs to become, and what success really means to him.

What originally inspired you to found qashqade?

The short answer is that we saw a problem nobody wanted to touch. Gregor and I were both working for another private markets software provider and it became increasingly clear to us that while the industry had solutions for a range of private markets functions, nobody had built proper software for carry calculations - the actual complex mathematical engine at the heart of every distribution waterfall. Everything was being done in Excel, however sophisticated the fund structures involved.

When we raised it internally and suggested building something, we were told there was no market for it and it was too complex. That answer told us two things: the problem was real, and the will to solve it wasn't there. So when we left, we decided to have a go ourselves.

We launched a pilot in 2018 and showed up at SuperReturn in Berlin. The response from the industry was fairly consistent: it can't be automated, it's too complex. Eight years later, we're still here and the platform works. Sometimes the best validation is simply proving people wrong.

What is the one thing that makes qashqade genuinely different from other players in the private markets ecosystem?

If I had to put it in one sentence: we are the only engine that executes the contractual economics of an LPA in the exact legal sequence, fully automated, fully systematic, and entirely outside of Excel.

That matters more than it might sound. The LPA is the governing document. The calculation has to follow its logic precisely. Bot approximately, not "close enough for reporting purposes." Every step, every threshold, every distribution priority has to be executed in the right order. We do that in a single engine that covers calculation, allocation, forecasting, and analysis. No spreadsheet behind it, no black box, no manual reconciliation required.

On the black box point specifically: People have come to associate transparency with Excel formulas, which strikes me as an odd definition of transparency. A 200-megabyte spreadsheet full of nested formulas and cell references is not transparent. It's just familiar. Our system provides a detailed audit trail of every transaction and every step in the calculation sequence. Big Four audit firms have tested it and work with it now for more than 5 years. If that's a black box, I'd invite anyone to show me what Excel looks like under the same scrutiny.

How has your vision for the company evolved since the early days?

We started with a clear and narrow focus: automate carry calculations for GPs. That was the problem, and solving it properly was ambitious enough.

From there, the expansion was logical. Fund administrators service GPs, so bringing them onto the platform extended our reach without changing the core proposition. Adding LP-side functionality was the next step. And as the platform matured, we moved from being purely a calculation engine to being an allocation engine as well, covering the full journey from cap table and deal structure, through cash flow allocation, all the way to the distribution of carry to individual shareholders, co-investors, and internal recipients.

What hasn't changed is what we are not. We are not a portfolio management tool nor an accounting software. We don't tell you what's happening inside the portfolio. We focus entirely on the allocations, the calculations, and the cash flows that flow from them. That discipline matters. The temptation in this industry is to keep adding functionality until the product becomes everything and therefore nothing in particular. We've resisted that.

Private markets are evolving - what major developments do you see ahead, and how is qashqade positioned to respond?

A few things are converging and they're all pointing in the same direction for us.

Digitisation of the industry is the overarching theme, and AI is the current focal point within it. I'll be direct: AI matters and it will have a significant impact on administrators, on service providers, on GPs themselves. But I'm also a little sceptical of the way it's being discussed right now, where every vendor needs an AI story or they're considered behind the curve. The question that actually matters is whether the underlying calculation is correct, and no amount of AI capability changes the bar on that. In allocation management, 99% accuracy is not acceptable. You need to be right.

Beyond AI, I think the push toward consolidated digital platforms, the idea of a best-of-breed ecosystem rather than a single monolithic solution, is where the market is heading. We're already integrating with fund accounting software to be part of that picture.

What I find genuinely interesting, though, is the thesis that broader market access and smaller ticket sizes will simplify the industry. I think it's exactly backwards. More participants, more diverse fund structures, more varied LP arrangements: that's more complexity, not less. For a platform that's built to handle complexity, that's a very good outlook.

You've spoken externally about leadership and culture - how do you think about building and managing teams at qashqade?

We're a small company, but we operate across multiple locations — out of  Zurich where we have our HQ, the UK, the US, Germany, Hungary, Argentina, and the Philippines, plus freelancers and contractors operating globally. Managing a distributed, globally diverse team is genuinely challenging and I don't want to pretend otherwise.

What we look for are people who don't necessarily fit the standard mould. Smaller companies attract a certain kind of person: independent-minded, willing to operate without a lot of structure, and comfortable with ambiguity. I think of it as a collection of misfits in the best sense. These are people who bring something specific and valuable in an environment like ours.

The way we develop people is through real work, early. We don't have the luxury of running someone through two years of structured training before they touch a client. People here are trained properly and get involved in live implementations at an early stage. That creates ownership and it accelerates growth in a way that theoretical training simply can't.

My own approach to leadership is straightforward: I don't ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself. I book my own flights. I still do product testing. I pour the coffee when clients visit. And on top I do my job. That's how I think a company should be run, and it sets the tone for everyone else. As we grow, that will change by necessity, but the culture it creates shouldn't.

What excites you most about the people working here today?

Honestly, the variety. We hire on skill and on fit, not on any other criteria. The result is a team with genuinely different backgrounds, nationalities, and ways of approaching problems and that turns out to be a lot of fun to be part of.

What I notice most is that despite all that variety, people are aligned. There's a shared sense of where we're going and a willingness to pull in the same direction. That's not something you can manufacture. You either find people who have it or you don't.

We still have a long way to go. But the journey has been interesting, and the people are a big part of why.

Looking ahead, what would success look like for qashqade in the next few years?

I want to be straightforward about this because I think these questions sometimes produce answers that are a bit sanitised.

Commercial success matters. We are not a charity. Building a highly profitable, high-value company is an explicit goal, and an eventual exit at strong value would be good for the employees, good for the clients, and a validation of what we've built. I'm not going to dress that up.

But what I also care about is the reputation we carry into that outcome. I want the clients who work with us to genuinely value the software and the service. I want the partners we work with to see us as people they respect and want to continue working alongside. The relationships matter, not just the multiple.

If in a few years we are profitable, growing, trusted by serious players in the industry, and known as the definitive solution for allocation management, that's success. We're building toward it.