Accelex, a SaaS platform specializing in alternative investment data management, and qashqade, a software solution that enables private capital allocators and asset servicers to automate their waterfall and valuations workflows announce a partnership that will allow clients of both firms to leverage an end-to-end solution from the automated extraction of performance and transaction data contained in unstructured private markets investment documents with Accelex to the complex valuations analysis, including carry calculation, cash flow forecasting and carried interest administration, with qashqade.
Accelex clients will now be able to run valuations and modeling simulations using the qashqade platform, instead of relying on prone to errors Excel files. At the same time, qashqade clients will be able to useAccelex to streamline the extraction of data required to execute their waterfalls, fee reconciliation and reporting from unstructured content (i.e.,PDFs) – therefore reducing the time, effort, and resources required to run an otherwise manual and very time-consuming task.
“We are excited to be working with the outstanding team at qashqade”, explained Nicole Weder, Co-founder of Accelex. “They share our mission to increase automation within the private capital industry, and we look forward to strengthening our partnership with qashqade for years to come.”
Oliver Freigang, CEO & Co-founder of qashqade, commented on the newly established partnership: “Collaborating with Accelex will provide qashqade clients a best-in-class solution specifically designed to remove manual extraction and human-entry processes from unstructured data sources. Accelex is a great complement to what we do here at qashqade.”
About qashqade
qashqade was founded in early 2018 with the objective to allow Private Market companies and their investors to calculate their waterfall and Carried Interest in a fully automated system instead of in Excel spreadsheets, therefore allowing a direct communication between GP and LP about the terms and the potential payout. qashqade is headquartered in Zürich, with offices in New York, Lausanne, Leipzig and Birmingham.
About Accelex
Founded in 2018, Accelex provides data acquisition, analytics and reporting solutions for alternative investors and asset servicers, enabling firms to access the full potential of critical investment performance and transaction data. Powered by proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, Accelex solutions automate processes for extraction, analysis and sharing of difficult-to-access unstructured data. Accelex is headquartered in London, with offices in Paris, Luxembourg, New York, and Toronto. For more information please visit: www.accelextech.com
download fileqashqade’s development team just hit it again with this new release focused on operational scalability!
Several improvements have been implemented in the quest for a user experience that excels in the Software Solutions for the Private Markets industry across all market segments.
Our Fund Managers are characterized by looking for solutions that allow their teams to perform their jobs better, quicker, and more efficiently. This fact supports the need in this new release for new functionality that allows our users to create reports for each account. All this provides each member of our client’s teams with the individual autonomy that only qashqade can give them.
The tools currently used today by other solutions simply connect multiple systems and make use of the results calculated externally, whereas the qashqade solution behaves with a high degree of autonomy and does not require a direct link with additional systems.
Our competitor solutions, whilst filling a space in the market, do not typically include the ability to define calculation rules and so do not provide the degree of flexibility that qashqade provides.
Combined with the fact they do not allow (or are not capable of) internal calculations with the necessary precision, resulting in somewhat delayed processes, this ensures that qashqade fills a need for the more demanding fund manager.
In each release and each period, the development team works tirelessly to make our Enterprise Suite a tool that finally democratizes access to complex calculations used when Distribution of Waterfalls or Carried Interest Points allocation: this is achieved by maintaining our impeccable security standards and keeping the logic easy to understand so that everyone may run their own calculations, resulting in reducing dramatically the time you spend updating your operational results and analysis.
We want our clients, users, and their customers to have the possibility to share their results, transactions, and calculations effortlessly, leaving aside the risks of miscalculations made in excel spreadsheets or the use of multiple software packages to obtain the desired analysis, and the massive loss of time in reporting and administration.
If you want to know which specific upgrades we deliver to our ecosystem this period, please visit: Release Notes 22.0.8 - Manual - 22.0.0 (qashqade.com)
download fileqashqade is thrilled to be an exhibitor at this year's version of SuperReturn CFO/COO conference, taking place on 17-19 October at Hotel Okura, Amsterdam.
SuperReturn CFO/COO is a great place to connect with CFOs, COOs, CCOs & CROs from Top Ranked Funds and Private Equity Experts.
This event's agenda will discuss the latest insights on upcoming ESG and tax regulation, technology and cybersecurity and diversity and talent retention.
qashqade's participation is therefore highly valued, since automation in rewarding systems for fund managers and deal teams through accurate GP Carry calculations and distribution waterfalls calculations are crucial for maintaining young talent motivated and in charge of their numbers.
Attending from qashqade's team will be our CEO and Co-Founder, Oliver Freigang and our CPO and Co-Founder Gregor Kreuzer.
This 17th, 18th and 19th of October don't miss the chance to envision the digitalization path that already have taken fund managers, investors and administrators worldwide.
download fileThe innovation path taken by qashqade continues astheir customers can enjoy the flexibility that the most powerful calculationengine in the industry can deliver. This time, we became ITigers with actesy, acomprehensive integration tool, with a partnership agreement that will allowour users to integrate all their data sources into qashqade easily and withcomplete independence from systems, databases, and versions. The actesyframework frees us from any restrictions that previous systems may have to integrate.
What will this allow us to do in simple terms?
We’ll save time and resources when integratingqashqade into our customers' systems. Data migration to start using ourcalculation engine is part of our onboarding and our solemn commitment to our customers.With partners like actesy, we honor our promise always to provide the bestsolution on the market, allowing us to be more versatile, more flexible, andmore agnostic about the integrations we work with than ever before.
What benefits are there for our customers?
Our customers can now worry about what matters: theircore business! The IT department will be less burdened, the team will wait fora short time, and the C-Level will see how the team focuses on what matters themost while qashqade is smoothly being implemented. General Partners will beable to upload all transaction information seamlessly and effortlessly. LPswill access their data with a couple of clicks, and support teams and theecosystem will enjoy all the accuracy of qashqade now in fewer steps and lesstime.
Best of all? The data usage and protection methodologyare among the highest in the market; it couldn't be otherwise. Our new partnerreceives regular safety audits according to international standards such asPCI, in addition to various measures validated by the qashqade team to providethe best service when running Waterfall Calculations, allocating CarriedInterested Points, or managing Cap Tables.
download fileZürich, September 19th, 2022.
qashqade has improved its interface and raised its functionality standards through this new release that provides its users with a superior experience for using the most customizable reporting module on the market and the most flexible waterfall calculation engine.
User experience and Interface: An improved look ‘n’ feel will allow the user to navigate more intuitively and work with the different modules of the platform with the autonomy that qashqades UX permits, both from responsive and full-screen sizes.
The platform offers upgraded customization, data visibility, and data processing capabilities that are unique in the market.
The company wants to honor the commitment to its users so that working with the software is always an intuitive and independent experience. Thus, we simplified the user authentication status process and will notify you right away when your profile settings are being changed, making your life easier while login in and keeping all your work safe at the same time. Work whenever and wherever you want with qashqade.
Waterfall, GP Carry, and Data
The market's most flexible Enterprise Suite allows users to go as granular as they want, whether talking about metrics, reports, or step relations in the Waterfall functionality. In this new release, a last step in the step logic was added, ensuring LPs and GPs paid are optimized. A further step type category, “Expense,” was added, partner transfers may be added one to one, and Waterfall steps may now run on the fund level.
Our GP Carry Tool allows to vest upon specific dates or periods now, and our CapTable Manager allows additional fund fields to be edited on the vehicle screen, loaded with the fund load, and used in the reports.
Reporting and Metrics are the platform’s proudest modules, presenting in-app reporting options and other functions that are unique in the industry.
Smooth and seamless experience when using the Document Generator or working reporting tables for different stakeholders and entities, our clients decide whether they want to see and share their results through Management Reporting (in-app and spreadsheets) or Document Generation (.pdf files) within their license.
This time, even more, customization possibilities have been included: decide whether you want to design documents by yourself or use one of our preset templates, be able to rename qashqades’ reports’ headers with internal company concepts using Default Labels, and re-assign columns within a report by just numbering them. You may design donut charts, add them below “Statements”, select values to be displayed among three different progress columns and name them as you wish!
Adjusted charts legend sizes so as numbers format for transaction numbers improves readability.
Automatic validation of your document’s designs to your reports ensures efficient and up-to-date work while creating, configuring, and replicating documents.
Bespoke metrics, bespoke reports, and the possibilities are just what you asked for.
download fileZürich, 19th September 2022
The world of private equity is becoming more and more demanding, our clients need end-to-end solutions that solve complex asset management problems. Technology and Specializing Consultants work hand in hand with investors, fund managers and fund administrators, seeking to create more value, contributing new ideas and providing relevant insights. New ways of doing business enable better investments.
It is for this and more, that we at qashqade are happy to announce Synpulse as our new Certificate Partner.
Qashqade’s automating tool will join Synpulses clients through their investor's journey, supporting calculations and complex allocation processes while receiving a top consulting experience.
We aim to eliminate errors and time wasting for asset managers and life & pension stakeholders, improve their business efficiency and further their capabilities, digitalizing the process by eliminating old enough spreadsheets for good.
At qashqade, meaningful innovation serves humans to make better business decisions based on data and technology.
As our unique self-service solution encourages digital maturity, we need the best implementation partners to join our clients: from the traditional manual processes to our advanced waterfall calculation.
We believe in better maths and better allocations, resulting in outstanding efficiency, transparency and overall results for fund managers, investors and auditors.
Synpulse is ready to join us in that journey, as we revolutionize the way people work their numbers and calculations.
download fileOver the years I’ve been involved with a number of companies, some start-up, some turn around and others trying to achieve scale up – and all of these companies have a number of things in common.
So today I’d like to touch on one aspect that is common to every business, which will be a key success factor no matter what stage of it’s lifecycle the company may be in – User experience.
Your first thought is probably UI/UX and navigating the system in the smallest number of clicks – but that’s not what I’m referring to.
The UI stuff is great, but for your IT department that is not what we’re thinking about when we talk about the experience of the user.
When I talk about the user experience I’m thinking about the system performance, it’s availability, how it performs under load and how much down time is required any time we need to do anything to it.
In short I’m talking about the one thing that most management teams don’t appreciate until it’s too late – none functional requirements and their effect on operational scalability.
Operational scalability in this case relates to performance of your software and infrastructure and both of these are going to feed into your ability to retain both staff and clients.
So where do most companies go wrong?
In my experience there are two areas where companies tend to underestimate or completely neglect their own interests:
1. System resilience
2. System performance
Let’s start with the simple one first, system performance.
Perhaps the best phrase to start with, even though it’s common sense, is “A proof of concept is not a product”.
I’ve seen a number of start-ups and blue chips alike that have developed a fantastic proof of concept. It looked amazing and for a small number of users (typically located in the same office) it worked perfectly. The management teams hailed the project a complete success and then opened the food gates to the user community.
At which point the support staff were overwhelmed, developers stopped answering their phones and the management couldn’t work out why they were suddenly seeing so many angry emails.
The point that they overlooked was that their testing did not include load testing but only had a number of well orchestrated technical users performing tests. I’ve seen multi million-dollar systems that could only support a handful of users at any time for exactly this reason.
This is a very simple trap to avoid – at design time the product management team should specify the KPI’s that the system must deliver i.e. how many transactions per second can the system process, how many simultaneous users can the system support, etc. and then the IT team should verify that the delivered solution meets these KPI’s. These are often referred to as part of the non functional requirements of a system.
I made the point about a proof of concept not being a product as most POC’s are built to look great whilst being based on a minimum viable codebase – not a well-designed, hardened codebase.
Perhaps a harder point to address is that of system resilience.
When I talk about system resilience, I’m typically thinking of a systems ability to process data whilst under stress, to maintain referential integrity of data/processing and to be able to maintain operational capabilities. And the systems ability to recover from the stress event, hopefully in a manner that insulates the client from the recovery mechanism (and any side effects).
To achieve this we should consider the following items:
• Recovery – can a specific component or service be restarted without effecting the entire platform, can it do it automatically?
• Scaling – can the infrastructure automatically assign more resources (or less) to a component that is under stress? Does the infrastructure have a mechanism to detect these events?
• Monitoring and Alerting - This is the really important one. Do you know what your system is doing (both the infrastructure and the components)? Do you know that there are problems BEFORE the client knows?
Note: You should be able to answer “Yes” to all three of these points.
There are a number of solutions to these items ranging from the use of elastic pools for scaling in cloud environments, through to using containerised component deployments and Kubernettes to enable scaling of the software components and automated recovery. And again, for monitoring and alerting there are a myriad of solutions including the built in solutions of Azure/AWS.
I mentioned that operational scalability will influence not only an organisations ability to retain clients but also staff. This is because systems that have not been designed with operational scalability in mind will typically require a lot of unplanned effort from the IT team – which will result in them delivering less new functionality (because they’re spending more time diagnosing/fixing things manually), being required to work overtime to fix problems and will result in conflict between the development and infrastructure teams – not to mention the management pressure to deliver more. Why would anyone stick around for that?
So, if you take nothing else away from this article consider this, as part of your overall quality strategy, it is in your own self interest to ensure that you deliver a performant, resilient system and the best way to do this is to consider non-functional requirements (and their impact on user experience) at design time – not once the emails start arriving
download fileMy career in finance began way before I started at Smith Barney Shearson in 1993. At a younger age I had formed 2 small companies, one a landscaping business at the age of 10 and the other at 20 years old, a resource network for musicians to find services they need but may not be skilled or proficient at.
During my universities studies years I joined a band that needed a lead guitar player and left college to tour the U.S for 3 months. Friends I had grown up with, who needed to replace their current guitarist. As fabulous as that was, it was the shock of living a musicians’ existence on the road and the rush of the experience was the motivation and inspiration I needed to focus on my studies more diligently and finally finish college.
After graduation I got a job as a Sales Associate at a major wire house, where I gravitated towards the interesting and quite misunderstood derivates markets. After getting licensed, I learned all I could about the markets and how they traded, i.e. equity, credit, commodities, indexes, options, futures, charting etc. and the correlation to each other or lack of.
I then moved to a global OTC equity derivatives brokerage a week after the collapse of Barings Brothers in the wake of a “rogue trader” scandal in 1994. Working on the desk was chaotic and busy from day one. I was hooked! The learning curve was a steep one, but I welcomed the challenge. After learning all I could and looking for upward career mobility I set out to help head the equity trading desk at another big global inter dealer broker and helped build it into a much larger desk by the time I moved on about two years later. My next role was with one of my trading clients, a Latin American financial institution, where I began as a sales trader and eventually ran the equity trading desk in New York.
Well as the age 30 was growing closer I decided to get off the trading desk and move towards the pension fund marketplace. Where my father was in since the late 1960’s. I grew up with my father as the fund administrator and Fund Chairman for one of the maritime union pension plans before he moved to the world of investment management. I was familiar with the labor and management set up, a board of trustees, the world of collective bargaining and pension liabilities, actuarial assumptions and asset allocation. These were words we learned growing up. Well out of the 2 other siblings I have, I listened to our father talk of these subjects.
I spent a year in the investment consulting business, specializing in soft dollar sales and commission recapture programs (CRP) before being requited by Lynch, Jones & Ryan, a pioneer in the business of CRP. This service unbundled the research component from institutional equity and fixed income execution and rebated a portion of the commissions or spread generated back to the pension plans. This introduced me to the concept of fiduciary responsibility as it pertains to running a pension fund.
From there my business grew tremendously as I concentrated on one marketplace, the multi-employer or Taft-Hartley pension funds. From there as my career grew, I branched out to other marketplaces, public funds, corporate, endowments & foundations and other pockets of institutional capital.
Out of the CRP business the transition management business was developing and gaining popularity in the institutional space. We took advantage of that and built out a team. I have a fond memory of my experiences and those that I worked and learned from, many of whom I am still in touch with today. One thing I have learned is…. You're never too old to learn more and we constantly are if we stay open to it and have the hunger for it.
Life Experience
I am a proud father of two beautiful children. A young woman 20 years old and a young man 17 years old.
Both gifted in different aspects of life. My daughter more artistic, creative and athletic, and sometimes a bit hotheaded, lol, she was a fabulous, accomplished team swimmer and violinist and pianist. My son is more athletic and scholarly, and quite low key off the field. He focuses on football and has played since he was 5 years old as well as basketball, baseball and lacrosse on the team level. I have been very closely involved in his athletic life and look forward to seeing him play football on the college level as he is currently being sought out by several reputable educational institutions. He’s also an honor roll student!
As for hobbies I enjoy cooking, fishing, wine tasting, spending time with all my family and I love to have dinner parties, plan menus and many other culinary delights.
I still play guitar in occasion and enjoy taking walks along the water.
About Qashqade
My first interview for my position at Qashqade was with Jeannine Firth. She was friendly, welcoming and very easy to speak to. She gave me an overview of the company and it appeared towards the end that I would progress to round two. I felt good about our discussions.
I then was interviewed by Oliver, we had a brief personal introduction more of family background, sports and brief discussion of career experience, then he stopped me and asked, “Do you like me?”
The first time ever asked that question during an interview, my first instinct was, this is a first, and I answered honestly, YES, I DO. I felt immediately comfortable with him. Our interactions and conversation during that video call were dynamic and covered many topics. I believe we went over our time allotment and throughout our call I felt his commitment, determination, passion and drive to make Qashqade a successful endeavor.
My third interview was with Gregor. Again, I felt his high energy level related to Qashqade and the power of the step logic and the amount of miscalculation that could be going on in the carry calculations and fees being levered in the alternatives markets. Both on the LP and GP side of the business. I saw the opportunity with those I have serviced in the past and those I have yet to meet. I felt his desire to solve this problem and I once again saw the opportunity for LP’s and GP’s alike shed light on the opaque nature of the calculations being performed on antiquated systems and spreadsheets, inherited or developed by those that have an interest on one side of the equation.
The fourth and final in person meeting was held within one month of my first interview, in NYC.
I had offered to meet them at the airport for coffee as Oliver mentioned a conference, they were attending in Chicago but were also stopping in New York for a day or so. I wanted to show my ability to ask for a meeting, show initiative.
A few days before the meeting I got an invitation from Jeannine to meet both Oliver and Gregor for lunch in NYC. I felt this was a positive move from coffee at the airport. Could this be something more, I asked myself. Oliver arrived first and we sat down at the table. After a brief chat, he mentioned that he would be making an offer to me, and we discussed some details. I verbally accepted the offer and by the end of the day a contract arrived in my inbox from Roman and we were off to the races.
Two days later I met the two again downtown for lunch with Marcel from Synpulse and I returned my signed contract, Oliver signed, and I started the following Monday, May 1, 2022.
As for the product: digitizing the protocol for complex waterfall carry calculations is a very important task and one that must be done prior to any regulation that may be coming down the road. Be it in Europe, the United States, EMEA, or Asia Pacific it is coming as alternative market products gain more popularity among the investor base in several categories of investor. As more and more capital come in the need for some audit trail is necessary and required to keep the playing field honest and trustworthy.
As with any game, having a set of rules and following them makes the whole experience best for all players.
download fileLet's celebrate our 4th Birthday today!
Trends in Controlling? Controlling ist der Trend!
Read our latest article in the Venture Capital Magazine.
download fileSuperReturn International is back in person! Join the world’s most influential GPs and LPs to examine the latest opportunities, challenges and projections in a post pandemic world.
What are the key gamechangers for private capital in today’s market?
Hear from the CEOs of leading private equity firms and benefit from data-rich presentations, controversial debates, interactive and informal workshops and roundtables on innovation, ESG, growth, value, regeneration, returns and much more.
Visit our booth and get to know our new Enterprise Solution and what qashqade can do to advance your business!
download fileLPGP Connect CFO/COO Private Debt London brings together CFO, COO, Finance Directors, Operations, Compliance, Risk Professionals and C-Levelled executives working within the global private debt community. Its 3rd annual event will focus on the latest issues for global debt fund managers looking to stay ahead of the competition.
Visit our booth and get to know our new Enterprise Solution and what qashqade can do to advance your business!
download fileLet's meet in London, it's the perfect place to re-connect with senior private equity finance, operations, compliance and risk professionals and share experiences of navigating the global pandemic and its impact on operations and portfolios.
Visit our booth between September 21-22 and get to know our new Enterprise Solution!
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