Capital introduction is not one product. On the iConnections platform, it is two formats that solve different problems and complement each other when they run in combination: Roadshows and the Global Alts event franchise. The question that comes up most often from our members is which one to use when. The answer is rarely either-or. The right answer is usually both, sequenced.

This piece walks through the trade-offs and the specific cases where one iConnections format does the work better than the other.

The Two Formats, Side by Side

Global Alts is the iConnections four-event flagship series: Miami in Q1, New York in June, Asia in November, and the inaugural Europe debut in Paris in April 2027. The model is destination: bring the alternatives community to one venue for a focused week of pre-scheduled LP-GP meetings, panels, programming, and networking.

iConnections Roadshows invert the model. The manager travels to the allocator’s home city for a focused week of in-office, one-on-one meeting. This is where the manager list was built from the allocator’s mandate before the calendar got booked. On our platform, a Roadshow is mandate-driven and allocator-led. The allocator describes the mandate. The iConnections platform surfaces matching managers. The allocator selects three to five. The managers fly in. See the iConnections Roadshows page for the full mechanics.

Both formats are member benefits of the iConnections platform. Both run on the same underlying matching engine we built. They are not competing products. They are complementary surfaces.

When Global Alts Is the Right Tool

Global Alts is built for breadth and density. Attendees get access to a meeting floor that compresses a year of in-person allocator coverage into four days. The pre-scheduled meeting slots are the core artifact. The second-order discovery is where a meaningful share of new relationships actually starts: the bar at 9 p.m., the panel-room conversation, the partner-event sideline.

Use Global Alts when the goal is range: new LP relationships, broader brand visibility, panel and content surface, the kind of dense schedule that surfaces second-order discoveries. The format favors managers with current materials on our platform before the event, because the allocator’s pre-event shortlist is built off engagement with the iConnections profile, not off the registration list.

When a Roadshow Is the Right Tool

An iConnections Roadshow is built for depth. A GP who has identified an allocator with a mandate that matches their strategy, and who needs in-office time to move the relationship from interest to diligence, is the GP for whom the Roadshow format earns its keep: three to five mandate-matched meetings in a week, hosted at the allocator’s office, on the allocator’s schedule, with no travel-day waste on either side.

The format also solves a problem the destination event cannot. Some allocators do not travel to flagship events at all. They run their portfolio from one home office and they expect managers to come to them. A Roadshow week is the format that brings the manager to the allocator’s calendar without forcing the allocator into a destination event. For emerging and mid-market managers without a fifteen-person IR team, this is often the highest-leverage week of the year.

Use a Roadshow when the goal is depth: specific mandate match, deep in-office conversation, follow-through on a relationship that already has signal. The format favors managers with focused strategy clarity and a sharp case-study set.

Why Most Members Use Both

The reason most GP members on the iConnections platform use both formats is that the formats solve different parts of the same fundraising cycle. Global Alts seeds new relationships at scale. Roadshows advance the relationships that already showed signal. A GP who runs only the destination events misses the depth conversation that converts a meeting into a commitment. A GP who runs only the Roadshow circuit misses the breadth that produces the next quarter’s pipeline.

The Global Allocator Report 2026 makes the structural case from the LP side. Over half of LPs cite conferences and industry events as a primary discovery channel. Nearly 80% report that the manager-LP relationships that produce commitments live inside the professional network the LP is part of year-round. Both formats on our platform feed that network. Neither one does the whole job alone.

For the in-event mechanics of how Global Alts produces commitments, see “How LP-GP Relationships Actually Get Built in Alternative Investments.” For the post-meeting workflow that runs after either format, see “What Allocators Actually Do Between the Meeting and the Commitment.”

A Simple Sequencing Frame

The cleanest way to think about it is sequence. Use Global Alts to surface new allocators and broaden the pipeline. In the following weeks, lean on the platform’s intent signals on our platform across the following weeks to identify which of those allocators is showing real engagement. The bring an iConnections Roadshow to advance the highest-signal relationships to in-office, mandate-matched depth. Repeat the cycle on the next event window. The fund manager who sequences the two iConnections formats this way is the fund manager whose pipeline compounds across the year rather than spiking around a single event week