Alts in the Wealth Management Era 2025 Survey

Templum and Alternatives Watch survey reveals the automation gap holding back private market growth.

Automation or bust: Why alts must evolve to serve wealth managers

Private markets have long been hailed as drivers of innovation — fueling breakthroughs in AI, biotech, and clean energy. But while alternatives have surged, the infrastructure surrounding it remains decades behind. For wealth managers and registered investment

advisors (RIAs) seeking to incorporate alts into client portfolios, the real barrier isn’t interest or demand. It’s operational complexity.

Templum Founder and CEO Christopher Pallotta has spent years building technology designed to address this challenge head on. “It’s a natural evolution,” he says. “Managers want a direct relationship with investors — and the private wealth channel is now larger than many institutional pools. But scale is impossible without automation.”

To understand just how critical automation has become, Templum partnered with Alternatives Watch in May 2025 to survey wealth managers, family offices, and investment platforms overseeing billions in client assets. The results were telling: even as demand for

alternatives grows, the industry remains bogged down by manual workflows, fragmented systems, and limited transparency.

Alts demand Is rising — but so are operational headaches

Nearly 70% of survey respondents said their clients plan to increase allocations to alternatives in the next 18 months. The top drivers? Diversification (71%), enhanced returns (64%), and access to unique investment opportunities (57%). Meanwhile, 35% expect target allocations of 5-10%; and another 35% will have alts portfolios 10-25% of assets this year, and 21% expect more than 25% of portfolios being allocated to alternatives.

But even as allocations grow, operational challenges are straining advisor capacity.

- 68% said investor onboarding is their most time consuming process

- 56% flagged investment due diligence as a heavy lift

- 56% also pointed to ongoing investor servicing such as delivering issuer/fund communications (capital calls, tax statements, fund performance) as major time sinks

Whether it’s onboarding investors or providing timely K-1s, the technology to tackle all the challenges across various alternative investment strategies has been lacking. “Some alts workflows involve up to 70 steps just to complete a transaction,” Pallotta says. “RIAs and wealth managers spend half their day trying to track down a client’s positions and where they have invested across multiple platforms. A search for capital calls and distributions can also take time just to answer simple client questions. That’s not scalable.”

Without automation, growth isn’t sustainable

The greatest need for automation can be found in back-office processes — reconciliation, reporting and settlement, according to respondents.

Half of those surveyed (50%) said their organization is “very likely” to or “somewhat likely” to invest in further automation within the next12 months. “There is still lots of room/need for automation of workflows,” commented a wealth manager/advisor with $10 billion plus

in AUM.

Respondents were evenly split between investing in automation for data analytics, business intelligence tools, and workflow automation solutions. “Investors expect the same digital experience in private markets that they already have in public ones,” Pallotta says. “But the industry hasn’t delivered. That’s the gap we’re solving.”

Templum’s solution, says Pallotta, lies in a unified infrastructure that streamlines every touchpoint — from onboarding to order execution to post-trade. Its platform includes a marketplace with top asset managers, an investor-facing activity feed (think: a social media timeline for portfolio updates), automated document delivery, and integrated secondary trading via its registered Alternative Trading System (ATS) and Qualified Matching Service

(QMS).

“Investors can see where they are in real time,” said Pallotta. Instead of sending out individual communications, investors can access everything related to their portfolio in one place.” This model enables RIAs and wealth managers to serve clients more efficiently while benefiting from Templum’s open architecture, which allows them to keep preferred custodians, fund partners, and workflows intact.

Access without the layers — and fees

The survey also found that 55% of capital is expected to flow directly into private companies, bypassing the feeder fund model that has dominated distribution of late.

Pallotta isn’t surprised. “Fees are a major issue. Feeder structures charge fees on top of fees. The economics just don’t work for many investors anymore,” he said. “Automation and seamless connectivity make direct investments feasible in a way that was previously not achievable, making feeder funds a thing of the past.”

Templum’s partnerships with firms such as SoFi showcase these shifts. Through the Templum One marketplace, investors can access investments such as private equity, real estate, and shares in private companies like SpaceX, xAI and Databricks via SPVs — without the extra fee layers.

This is just the beginning of a trend as the traditional exits of the IPO market become less plentiful and companies opt to stay private for longer. In the future, Pallotta predicts that some of the larger names will go on a semi- or quarterly-tender offering process so they can

continue to stay private for longer.

“There will be venture capital firms sitting in the middle of this and that will be a core part of their business going forward,” he predicted. “It’s a natural evolution,” Templum Founder and CEO Christopher Pallotta says. “Managers want a direct relationship with investors – and the private wealth channel is now larger than many institutional pools. But scale is impossible without automation.”

The education and transparency gap

The Templum/Alternatives Watch survey also uncovered that wealth management firms’ biggest concern was lack of information or knowledge of product when it comes to investing (54%).

“Performance of private investments is difficult for investors to understand [as these are delayed], and fees on both the underlying funds and feeder funds are complex (e.g., management fees on committed vs invested capital, sponsor fees, special arrangements,

carried interest),” said one wealth advisor with $5-10B in AUM.

“There can be material performance differences on net IRR from the sponsor vs. net IRR to investors after the feeder fund costs. Communication of what is happening with the fund should be improved. Communication of liquidity constraints needs to be improved ... carry that all the way through interval funds and any strategy that is not daily liquid.”

Pallotta agrees that clarity around net IRRs and fund structure is long overdue. But he’s optimistic that digital infrastructure will raise the bar. “As platforms scale, weak performers will be easier to spot. A ‘Supermarket for Alts’ — such as Templum One — gives investors better tools — and better comparisons — across managers,” he said.

In the future too, Pallotta expects liquidity to be less of an issue as more secondary issuance is done on platforms. Templum already has this capability through its automated ATS and QMS that allow for secondary trading solutions.

Looking ahead: The next phase of digitized access

As private markets continue to evolve, momentum is building toward broader investor access and smarter infrastructure. Pallotta points to encouraging signs — from regulatory shifts to innovative fund structures — that are breaking down traditional barriers.

While some survey respondents remain concerned about education and retirement account eligibility, Pallotta sees positive momentum. Easing of accredited investor rules, along with greater fund flexibility (such as evergreen and interval funds), will open the door to more investors — especially as platforms simplify subscription, communication, and secondary liquidity. “The alts space is 30 years behind when it comes to investment infrastructure,” says Pallotta. “But that’s changing. The wealth channel will drive the next wave of growth — if they have the tools to scale.”

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About Templum

Templum, the future of private markets, offers a complete infrastructure solution that helps wealth firms modernize and expand their offerings to meet new generations of investors with Templum One and Templum as a Service. The company streamlines connection to an innovative global ecosystem with some of the world’s most sought-after private markets’ alternative assets. By delivering or integrating turnkey investment platforms, workflow solutions, and partner networks, Templum is democratizing access and simplifying the process for alternatives investment. The company’s robust technology and regulatory framework automates legacy processes and unifies a fragmented ecosystem.

Non-Promotional in Nature

This presentation is for informational purposes only. It is not intended as an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security or investment product. The survey results do not constitute investment advice, performance data, or a recommendation of any strategy, product, or service.

Methodology and Limitations

• The results reflect the views of respondents at the time of the survey and may not be representative of our full client base or the investing public.

• Participation in the survey was voluntary and not incentivized.

• No attempt was made to independently verify respondent identities or portfolio information.

• Findings should be interpreted in context and not relied upon for investment decision-making.

• For some questions, survey participants were able to select more than one driver. Therefore, these totals may exceed 100%.

Use of Data

All survey responses were aggregated and anonymized prior to analysis. No

personally identifiable information has been disclosed or included in this

presentation. The data may have been refined for readability and grouped for

thematic clarity. Any forward-looking insights drawn from this data are based

on subjective interpretations and are not predictive of future performance or

investor behavior.

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