Not all fund tech matters equally. Here is what actually moves the needle for emerging managers — and what is noise.
I built Infra One because the technology available to emerging fund managers was inadequate. Legacy fund administrators run on systems designed in the 1990s: batch-processed, file-based, built for quarterly reporting cycles. The investor experience reflects this. PDF reports emailed as attachments, paper-based onboarding, data that is always slightly out of date.
But the answer is not to throw technology at every problem. Some tools are essential. Some are nice-to-have. Some are solutions looking for a problem.
Essential: digital investor onboarding
The investor onboarding experience is the most impactful piece of technology in your fund operations. It is the first thing your LPs interact with. It sets expectations for everything that follows.
A modern onboarding workflow collects subscription documents, identity verification (KYC/AML), tax forms (W-8BEN, W-9, CRS), and accreditation documentation in a single digital flow. No printing. No scanning. No emailing PDFs back and forth. The investor completes everything in one session, the data gets validated automatically, and your compliance team reviews a structured file rather than a stack of scanned documents.
This is not a luxury. Institutional investors expect this level of professionalism, even when investing in a $2M SPV.
Essential: automated capital calls and distributions
Capital call processing is one of the highest-risk operations in fund management. A miscalculated call amount, a wrong wire instruction, or a missed deadline creates real financial and legal problems. Automating this process (calculating pro-rata amounts, generating call notices, issuing wire instructions, reconciling incoming funds) reduces errors and frees your team to focus on investment decisions rather than spreadsheet arithmetic.
The same applies to distributions. When you have a realisation event, you need to calculate waterfall allocations, generate distribution notices, and process payments. Manual calculation in spreadsheets is error-prone and slow.
I get asked which fund tech matters most. The honest answer is investor onboarding and capital calls. Everything else is either nice-to-have or noise. If your LPs cannot subscribe digitally and your team is calculating capital calls in Excel, no AI feature will save you. Get the foundations boring and right before chasing anything labelled "next-generation."
Essential: real-time financial visibility
The traditional model of quarterly reporting (fund accountant produces statements weeks after quarter-end) is insufficient. LPs expect more frequent updates. GPs need real-time visibility into their fund's financial position to make decisions. A platform that provides live dashboards showing NAV, portfolio valuations, fee calculations, and cash positions replaces the cycle of waiting, requesting, and reconciling.
Essential: secure data rooms
Every fund needs a secure repository for investor documents, legal agreements, portfolio company information, and compliance records. If this is currently a shared Dropbox folder or a Google Drive link, you have a problem. A purpose-built data room provides granular access controls, audit trails, and a filing system that scales as you grow from one vehicle to many.
Important: cybersecurity foundations
You do not need to become a security expert, but you need to verify your technology providers meet baseline standards: ISO 27001 certification, GDPR compliance, encryption at rest and in transit, multi-factor authentication, regular penetration testing. If your fund administrator cannot demonstrate these basics, your investors' sensitive data is at risk. With DORA now in effect across the EU, the regulatory bar for digital resilience has risen.
Useful: API integrations
If you use external tools (portfolio monitoring software, CRM systems, accounting packages), connecting them via APIs eliminates manual data re-entry and reduces errors. This becomes more valuable as your operation scales, but is not necessary for a first fund.
Emerging: AI in fund operations
AI delivers real value in specific areas: document processing (extracting data from unstructured PDFs), DDQ response drafting, investor communication summaries. We are building AI capabilities into Backbone where they deliver measurable time savings. But be sceptical of vendors claiming AI will transform your entire operation overnight. The valuable AI applications in fund management are narrow, well-defined, and measurable.
Noise: building your own stack
Unless you are running a multi-billion dollar platform with a dedicated technology team, do not build your own fund management software. The engineering effort is enormous, the regulatory requirements are complex, and the maintenance burden is permanent. Buy or outsource, and invest the time you save in finding and executing deals.
How Backbone brings this together
We built Backbone to deliver everything in the "essential" category out of the box.
