Ashton Thomas Private Wealth, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based RIA with $2.9 billion in AUM and part of Arax Investment Partners, has become the latest advisory practice to sign onto alternative investment platform iCapital. Ashton’s addition caps off a busy first six months for Capital, which has had 170 new advisory firms join the platform year-to-date, according to iCapital Chairman and CEO Lawrence Calcano.
Overall, iCapital now has 2,500 wealth managers using its services, of which approximately 2,250 are independent wealth advisors.
Ashton Thomas and iCapital announced a strategic partnership that will give the RIA access to iCapital’s suite of alternative investment options and technology operating system. This will allow Ashton Thomas to streamline its data aggregation and management, reporting and other processes.
“As a platform with significant growth, technology is a core aspect of how we’re going to be successful—which is an area where I think iCapital has been exceptional,” Arax Investment Partners CEO Haig Ariyan said in a statement. “This strategic alliance will allow our independent advisors to access an enhanced suite of solutions, capability and analytics.”
According to Calcano, over the past year, iCapital has seen an acceleration in both advisors joining the platform and a reduction in the amount of time it takes them to start completing transactions. In the preceding 12 months, there were approximately 102,000 users on the iCapital platform, he said. Over the past quarter, the monthly average user number has reached somewhere between 43,000 and 44,000. Approximately 62% of those users are independent advisors, Calcano said.
“In the early days of this company, the independents would come on the platform, and they would spend time studying the offerings, and it might be months or a year before they would transact,” he said. “And now what’s happening is the independents are very active, and they have a clear strategic agenda. They are coming on and activating very quickly.”
For advisors who are primarily interested in gaining access to iCapital’s alternative products, private credit and private equity are currently getting the most attention. In the first quarter, 39% of inflows on the platform went toward private credit strategies, up from 35% in 2023 and 35% toward various private equity investments, according to Binoy Talati, managing director of enterprise solutions. Another 13% of inflows were dedicated to real assets and hedge funds each.
According to Talati, as Ashton Thomas Private Wealth scales up its alternative investments, it will use iCapital’s alternative products, structured investments, and technology platforms end-to-end.
“There is this evolution around the RIA market that we are super excited about,” Talati noted. “There is a lot of growth in the space and lots of consolidation and investors are pouring money and attention into the space. What that has led to is increased sophistication and demand for alternatives. And iCapital has been really well-positioned, I think, to deliver against that.”