Top allocators share sharp insights on portfolio rotation, AI adoption, USD risk, and where they’re doubling down in 2025. Featuring leaders from Bowdoin, Capital Management HK, and StepStone.
June 11, 2025
Top allocators share sharp insights on portfolio rotation, AI adoption, USD risk, and where they’re doubling down in 2025. Featuring leaders from Bowdoin, Capital Management HK, and StepStone.
A roadshow fails in the planning, not in the room. The managers who come home with pipeline are the ones who picked cities by where allocators actually are, built the schedule around fit rather than availability, prepared each meeting against live behavioral signals, and ran the follow-up while the trip was still warm. This is the working playbook: how to plan the route, fill the calendar, and convert the meetings.
The traditional roadshow is the most expensive week in a fundraise: flights, hotels, days away from the portfolio, and a calendar that lives or dies on whoever answered an email two weeks earlier. The modern version looks different. Allocators share availability by city, managers plan routes against real demand, and meetings get scheduled against live signals instead of stale contact lists. The playbook below is built around that model.
Start from where the allocators are, not where you have always flown.
The planning question is not “which cities do we usually visit” but “which cities have the density of in-market LPs for our strategy right now.” On iConnections, roadshows are planned against live LP availability maps: you can see who is in each market, and when, before booking travel. That turns routing from habit into a data decision.
A practical filter: two cities with ten qualified, available LPs each beat five cities with four. Density is what makes a roadshow day pay.
A roadshow calendar should be effectively full before wheels up.
That means the scheduling window opens weeks out, not days. On Violet, iConnections platform, managers create and share roadshow itineraries, and meeting requests go out as one-click requests with calendar sync and time zone management, integrated with the same scheduling infrastructure used for Global Alts pre-event scheduling.
The opposite failure mode is the open Tuesday in a city you flew to on spec. Every hour of that day costs what the whole trip costs.
The same thing that makes any LP meeting convert: the allocator wanted it.
A roadshow meeting booked because an LP saw the itinerary, checked the profile, and asked for a slot converts like an inbound meeting, because it is one. On iConnections, LPs initiate roughly half of all platform meetings, and roadshow itineraries are visible to the network, so the calendar fills with a mix of manager requests and allocator requests.
Preparation is the second lever. Walking in with live signals, knowing the LP viewed the profile on Tuesday and downloaded the deck on Thursday, changes the first ten minutes of the meeting.
The week after the roadshow is where most of the return is won or lost.
Every meeting should land in a pipeline the day it happens: notes, stage, next step. Document follow-through should be trackable, so you can see which LPs opened the materials you sent and which went quiet. On Violet, roadshow meetings flow into the same pipeline boards, document engagement tracking, and activity history as everything else, so the trip compounds instead of evaporating.
The managers who convert roadshows treat the trip as the middle of the process, not the finish line.
Not every LP conversation justifies a flight, and not every manager is ready for a multi-city route.
iConnections runs roadshows as an organized program, including multi-city manager visits to allocator markets and virtual formats, with selection that is allocator-led and mandate-driven: manager members are surfaced to allocators based on the strategies, fund sizes, and mandates the allocator selects. Keeping the fund profile complete and current is what puts a manager in the discovery pool.
How do I plan an LP roadshow?
Pick cities by live allocator density rather than habit, fill the calendar before travel, prepare against live behavioral signals, and run follow-up in a pipeline the same week. iConnections supports the whole workflow with live LP availability, shared itineraries, and integrated scheduling.
How do I get in front of LPs in their home cities?
Roadshows on iConnections are planned against live LP availability by city and date, so managers can see which allocators are in each market and build the route around them.
Can emerging managers join roadshows?
Yes. Selection is allocator-led and mandate-driven; manager members are surfaced based on the strategies, fund sizes, and mandates allocators select. A complete, current fund profile is the entry ticket.
A roadshow is a system, not a trip. Route against real allocator density, fill the calendar before you fly, walk in with live signals, and close the loop the week after. The managers who run it that way come home with pipeline instead of receipts. iConnections is built to run exactly that system.
Global Alts Miami 2027 takes place February 22 to 25 at Miami Beach. It is the largest capital introduction event in the industry: 6,000+ attendees, 1,500+ institutional allocators, 1,200+ fund managers, and more than 21,000 pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings across four days, with nearly half initiated by allocators. Registration is complimentary for qualified allocators who commit to taking 15 onsite meetings.
Every February, the alternatives industry has one week where the entire LP-GP meeting calendar compresses into a single venue. Global Alts Miami is that week: the largest concentration of qualified allocators at any single event globally, with the meeting schedules built on Violet, the iConnections platform before anyone checks into a hotel.
Global Alts Miami is the iConnections flagship capital introduction event, bringing together institutional allocators, fund managers, and service providers for four days of pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings and peer-led content.
The 2027 edition runs February 22 to 25 at Miami Beach. It is part of the Global Alts series alongside New York, Asia, and, debuting in April 2027, Europe.
The 2027 numbers: 6,000+ attendees, 1,500+ institutional allocators spanning pensions, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth, family offices, and fund-of-funds, and 1,200+ fund managers across hedge funds, private equity, private credit, real assets, venture, and digital assets. More than 21,000 meetings are scheduled at the single event, and 200+ speakers, including pension CIOs, endowment heads, and sovereign wealth leaders, lead the content program.
The meeting density is the structural difference. Pre-vetted, pre-scheduled, and optimized for fit, four days at Miami accomplish what months of outbound sourcing would.
Every meeting is scheduled in advance through Violet, the iConnections platform. Attendees build their schedules before they arrive, choosing who they see based on strategy, track record, and fit, so the four days onsite are spent in qualified conversations rather than open networking.
The defining stat: nearly half of all onsite meetings are allocator-initiated. LPs drive the agenda, choose their meetings, and control their time, which is why managers consistently report that Miami compresses their fundraising timeline by months.
Allocators: registration is complimentary for qualified institutional allocators who commit to taking 15 onsite meetings. In exchange: a pre-scheduled calendar of managers you have already vetted, peer-led content from fellow CIOs, and access to 1,200+ fund managers, including emerging managers not on your current radar.
Managers: access to 1,500+ institutional allocators, the largest concentration of qualified LPs at any single event globally. Meetings are with decision-makers, not gatekeepers: CIOs, heads of alternatives, and portfolio managers with real allocation authority. Whether a $50B platform or a $200M emerging manager, every firm gets access to the same allocators, and Violet, the iConnections platform surfaces best fits rather than biggest names. iConnections membership extends the relationships year-round after the event ends.
Service providers: 6,000+ qualified prospects in one venue, with tiered sponsorship options from Premier to Bronze, speaking and content sponsorships, and lead generation tracked through Violet, the iConnections platform. 150+ sponsors trust Global Alts Miami to deliver ROI.
Every connection made at Miami continues on Violet year-round: follow-ups, pipeline tracking, document sharing, and manager discovery continue long after the event ends. The event is the highest-density week of the year, but it is one week of a continuous model rather than a standalone conference.
When and where is Global Alts Miami 2027?
February 22 to 25, 2027, at Miami Beach, Florida.
How many meetings happen at Global Alts Miami?
More than 21,000 pre-scheduled, pre-vetted one-on-one meetings across four days. Nearly half are allocator-initiated.
Is Global Alts Miami free for allocators?
Yes. Registration is complimentary for qualified institutional allocators who commit to taking 15 onsite meetings.
Who attends Global Alts Miami?
1,500+ institutional allocators (pensions, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth, family offices, fund-of-funds), 1,200+ fund managers across every alternative strategy, and 150+ service-provider sponsors: 6,000+ attendees in total.
What is the largest capital introduction event?
Global Alts Miami. With 21,000+ pre-scheduled meetings, 1,500+ allocators, and 1,200+ managers at a single event, no other event in the industry matches its density of meaningful LP-GP interaction.
If you allocate capital, Miami is four days of pre-scheduled meetings with managers you have already vetted for fit. If you are raising, it is the largest concentration of qualified, in-market LPs anywhere in the world, and one event can generate a full year’s pipeline. Registration is open. Allocators attend complimentary with a 15-meeting commitment; managers attend through iConnections membership.
Emerging managers do not lose allocations because their strategies are weak. They lose because institutional LPs never see them, and cold outreach cannot fix that at a usable cost. The managers breaking through without a placement agent or a famous name share one playbook: build a profile where LPs are already searching, make it specific enough to survive a ten-second screen, stay visible between events, and let verified data do the trust-building that a brand name would otherwise do.
The emerging manager problem is not a performance problem. It is an access problem. An institutional LP evaluating a $300M fund and a $30B platform applies the same diligence bar, but the platform gets the meeting automatically and the emerging manager has to earn it, usually with fewer people, no placement agent budget, and no brand recognition. Cold email was supposed to be the equalizer. It is not. It scales linearly with hours, lands on people who did not ask for it, and starts every conversation at zero trust.
Cold outreach fails on three dimensions that matter more the smaller the fund is.
First, cost per meeting. Building and working a qualified list takes an IR professional’s week, and for an emerging manager that person is usually also the portfolio manager, the COO, or both. Second, intent. A cold contact did not ask to hear from you, so response rates stay low no matter how good the deck is. Third, trust. An LP taking a cold meeting with an unknown fund is pricing in the risk that the meeting wastes their time, which is exactly the risk a known brand removes.
None of this means outbound is useless. It means outbound alone is a losing strategy for a fund whose scarcest resources are time and credibility.
Institutional LPs do not wait for inbound decks to find new managers. They search.
On iConnections, allocators initiated roughly 70,000 AI-powered searches for managers in the last 90 days, and LP-to-GP profile clicks run at more than 250,000 a year. Family offices are the largest single allocator group on Violet, the iConnections platform, and the most common seniority levels among allocators at events are C-suite and founders. These are the people emerging managers assume are unreachable, and they are actively searching.
The discovery pool also skews toward exactly the managers who need it: the network supports everything from first-time fund launches to multi-billion-dollar platforms, and LPs on the iConnections platform browse sub-$100M managers alongside $3B+ firms.
Four moves, in order.
One: build a profile where the searching happens. Strategy, track record, AUM, fund documents, kept current. This is the asset that works while the team is running the portfolio.
Two: make it specific. An LP scrolling search results gives each profile seconds. A precise strategy description and mandate fit statement is the difference between a profile view and a meeting request.
Three: stay visible between events. Allocators search year-round, not just in the weeks before a conference. The managers who surface in February and September, not only in event season, are the ones who compound recognition.
Four: remove the trust discount with data. Verification programs exist precisely because emerging managers lack brand recognition. On iConnections, the Get Verified program submits fund returns directly from the fund administrator, with more than 40 administrators integrated and no self-reported numbers, so an unknown fund can carry the same trust signal as an established one.
A meeting an LP asked for starts at a completely different point in the funnel than one you asked for.
On iConnections, LPs initiate roughly half of all meetings on the iConnections platform. For an emerging manager, that flips the economics of fundraising: instead of paying in hours to generate meetings, the profile generates meetings while the team spends those hours on the conversations themselves. The level-playing-field dynamic is explicit in how the iConnections platform works: whether a firm runs $50B or $200M, every manager gets access to the same allocators, and matching surfaces fit rather than fame.
Events compress the playbook into days. At a capital introduction event, meetings are pre-scheduled and pre-vetted, so an emerging manager arrives with a full calendar instead of hoping for hallway luck. Global Alts events run across Miami, New York, Singapore, and, from 2027, Paris, and nearly half of onsite meetings are allocator-initiated, which means emerging managers are frequently sitting down with LPs who chose them.
The playbook point: events work best as the conversion layer on top of year-round visibility, not as the whole strategy. The LP who books you in Miami is often the one who found your profile in March.
How do emerging managers get in front of institutional LPs?
The highest-impact path is visibility where LPs already search: a complete, current, specific fund profile on a capital introduction platform, kept active year-round and backed by verified performance data. On iConnections, allocators ran roughly 70,000 searches for managers in the last 90 days.
Can emerging managers raise without cold outreach?
Yes. On a two-sided platform, LPs initiate roughly half of all meetings, and matching is based on strategy fit rather than firm size, so a $200M manager gets access to the same allocators as a $50B platform.
How do emerging managers build trust without a brand?
Through verification rather than repetition. Admin-submitted returns (the iConnections Get Verified program integrates with 40+ fund administrators) let an unknown fund carry a third-party trust signal that substitutes for name recognition.
Are events or platforms better for emerging managers?
They do different jobs. Platforms provide continuous discovery; events compress conversion into a few days of pre-scheduled meetings. The strongest emerging-manager raises use year-round visibility to set up event meetings.
Cold outreach asks emerging managers to win a volume game they are structurally staffed to lose. The alternative is to be findable, specific, verified, and continuously visible in the places LPs are already searching. That is what Violet, the iConnections platform is built for, and it is why the managers growing fastest are the ones treating discovery as infrastructure rather than hustle.
The Midyear Global Investor Report 2026 draws on nearly 1,000 allocators convened at Global Alts New York and a survey of almost 120 global LPs. The headline: appetite for alternatives is intact, with 59% of LPs planning to increase allocations and just 2% planning to decrease. Underneath it, the room has gotten harder to read: uncertainty about allocation plans jumped from 1% to 11%, 80% now cite geopolitical risk as a top concern, equity optimism has surged, and the Miami and New York audiences flatly disagree on the Fed. For managers, each finding carries a specific implication for how to position a fund right now.
Most allocator research asks a room how it feels once a year. This report had a different setup: a survey of almost 120 global LPs, fielded against the backdrop of nearly 1,000 allocators who convened at Global Alts New York in June, with a comparison point from the Miami audience in February. That makes it one of the few midyear reads on what institutional allocators actually think, measured in two cities four months apart.
Start with the number that matters most to anyone raising: 59% of LPs plan to increase their alternatives allocation. Just 2% plan to decrease.
For managers, this is the floor under the market. Whatever the headlines say, the structural bid for alternatives has not gone away, and the ratio of increasers to decreasers is nearly 30 to 1. The raise ahead is not about convincing allocators that alternatives belong in the portfolio. That argument is already won.
The same room that plans to add is less sure of itself than a year ago. LPs unsure of their allocation plans jumped to 11%, from just 1% in 2025.
That ten-point swing is the finding managers should sit with. Allocators who are unsure do not say no; they say not yet, and not yet is where raises go to stall. When uncertainty rises, the funds that keep moving are the ones already visible and familiar, because an undecided allocator defaults to the managers they know. The practical implication: the cost of going quiet between events just went up. Staying in front of the market year-round is how a fund survives someone else’s indecision.
80% of LPs now cite geopolitical risk as a top concern, up from 61%.
When four out of five allocators share one worry, that worry becomes part of every diligence conversation. Managers should expect the geopolitical question in every first meeting, and should have a direct answer for it: how the portfolio behaves under tariff shocks, regional conflict, and policy divergence, not as a disclaimer slide but as a view. The managers who treat geopolitics as a positioning topic rather than a risk-factor boilerplate will sound different from the ones who do not.
26% of LPs expect the S&P 500 to gain 10% or more this year, up from just 5%.
That fivefold jump changes the alternative pitch, because the benchmark allocators compare against just got more attractive. When an allocator believes beta will deliver double digits, the hurdle for paying 2-and-20 style economics rises with it. The answer is not to argue against equities; it is to be precise about what the fund adds that an index does not: uncorrelated return, downside behavior, access to a market public equities cannot reach. Vague diversification language loses to a specific answer this year.
The sharpest divergence in the dataset is on rates. In February, 67% of the Miami audience expected rate cuts. In June, 17% of the New York audience did.
A fifty-point swing between two allocator audiences four months apart means there is no single macro consensus to pitch into. A manager quoting a rates-driven thesis in June is addressing a room that mostly does not expect cuts, and any return bridge built on easing needs to survive a room that has stopped believing in it. The broader lesson: know which macro framework the person across the table brought with them, because it changed between February and June and it can change again before year-end.
The report also scores net LP conviction across 21 alternative strategies. Long/short equity leads at +37, multi-strategy follows at +35, and private equity sits third at +30. At the other end, ILS and catastrophe bonds post -14. And private credit shows the report’s most interesting tension: strong on paper, divided in the room.
For managers, the ranking is a map of where allocator attention is concentrated heading into the second half, and the strategy-level detail in the full report goes further: net interest by strategy, which LP types concentrate meetings where, and the top barrier keeping LPs from committing to a new fund. The companion analysis of private equity appetite at Global Alts New York makes the same point from meeting data: strategy fit, named by 31% of allocators, is the number one barrier to a new allocation, ahead of track record and fees.
What is the Midyear Global Investor Report 2026?
An iConnections research report based on nearly 1,000 allocators convened at Global Alts New York and a survey of almost 120 global LPs, covering allocation intentions, risk concerns, market expectations, and strategy-level conviction at the midpoint of 2026.
Are allocators still increasing alternatives allocations?
Yes. 59% plan to increase their alternatives allocation, and just 2% plan to decrease. At the same time, 11% are now unsure of their plans, up from 1% in 2025.
What is allocators’ biggest risk concern in 2026?
Geopolitical risk, cited by 80% of LPs as a top concern, up from 61%.
Which strategies have the strongest LP conviction at midyear 2026?
Long/short equity leads the net conviction ranking at +37, followed by multi-strategy at +35 and private equity at +30, across 21 alternative strategies scored in the report.
The midyear picture is a market that still wants alternatives but is harder to close: appetite intact, conviction more selective, and a risk lens dominated by geopolitics. The funds that raise well in this environment are the ones that stay visible through the indecision and arrive with specific answers. The full report, including the complete strategy conviction table and the private credit breakdown, is free to download.
Outbound fundraising is building a list of allocators and working it: research, segment, email, call, repeat. Inbound fundraising is being present and findable in the places allocators go when they are already looking, so the meeting requests come to you. Outbound creates first contact. Inbound creates pipeline. The strongest fundraising teams run both, but they budget for them differently, because a meeting an allocator asked for converts at a different rate than a meeting you asked for.
Every raise runs on some mix of two motions. In one, the manager finds the allocator. In the other, the allocator finds the manager. Both end in a meeting, but they start in very different places, and that starting point shapes everything downstream: cost per meeting, conversion rate, and how much of the team’s week goes to chasing versus talking.
Outbound fundraising is the motion most teams know best. You build a target list from databases and research, verify contacts, and work the list through email, calls, and introductions. The allocator is a record in your CRM. The work is research, segment, reach out, follow up.
Outbound is good at what it was built for. It gives you coverage: every allocator that fits your criteria ends up on the list, whether or not they have ever heard of you. It gives you control over timing and narrative. And for a new manager with no brand, it is often the only way to get the first fifty meetings.
Its ceiling is intent. The allocator did not ask to hear from you, so most outbound touches land on people who are not in-market. The cost shows up as low response rates and long conversion cycles, and it scales linearly: more meetings require more outreach.
Inbound fundraising is the opposite shape. Instead of finding allocators one at a time, the manager maintains a presence where allocators are already looking, and the allocators initiate.
On a capital introduction platform, that presence is a living fund profile: strategy, track record, materials, and documents, kept current. Allocators search by strategy and mandate fit, view profiles, download materials, and request meetings. On the iConnections platform, allocators ran roughly 70,000 AI-powered searches for managers in the last 90 days, and LP-to-GP profile clicks run at more than 250,000 a year. Nearly half of live event meetings on the iConnections platform are initiated by allocators.
The economics are different. The marginal cost of the next inbound meeting is close to zero, because the profile works while the team sleeps. And every inbound meeting starts at higher intent, because the allocator chose the meeting.
A meeting is not a meeting. The same hour on the calendar has a different expected value depending on who wanted it.
An outbound meeting starts cold: the first ten minutes are spent establishing why the conversation is happening at all. An inbound meeting starts warm: the allocator has already seen the profile, decided the strategy fits what they are looking for, and asked for the time. The conversation skips qualification and goes straight to substance.
That difference compounds across a raise. If inbound meetings convert to diligence at a higher rate than outbound meetings, then shifting the mix toward inbound raises the output of the whole funnel without adding headcount or hours. The top of the funnel stops being a volume problem and becomes a visibility problem.
No, and the strongest fundraising operations treat the two as layers of one stack rather than competitors.
Outbound is the right tool for targeted first contact: a specific allocator you want, a new market you are entering, a list that needs to be worked now. Inbound is the right tool for everything the list misses: allocators you did not know to call, mandates that opened this quarter, interest that exists but has not been expressed to you.
The practical split most teams converge on: outbound creates first contact with named targets, inbound captures demand from the market at large, and both feed the same pipeline. The mistake is running outbound alone and assuming the list is the market.
Inbound has its own price, and it is paid in profile quality rather than outreach volume.
An allocator browsing managers makes the decision in seconds, on the strength of what is on the page. A thin profile, stale materials, or a vague strategy description does not get a second look. The managers who win inbound treat their profile like a pitch: complete, current, and specific about what they do and who it fits.
That is the real trade. Outbound costs effort per meeting. Inbound costs rigor once, then pays out continuously.
What is the difference between inbound and outbound fundraising?
Outbound fundraising is building a list of allocators and working it through email, calls, and introductions. Inbound fundraising is maintaining a presence where allocators are already searching, so meeting requests come to the manager. Outbound creates first contact; inbound creates pipeline.
Is inbound fundraising better than outbound?
They do different jobs. Outbound gives coverage and control for named targets. Inbound captures demand from allocators the manager did not know to call, at higher intent and near-zero marginal cost per meeting. The strongest teams run both.
How do allocators find managers inbound?
On a capital introduction platform, allocators search and filter managers by strategy, track record, and mandate fit, view profiles, and request meetings. On the iConnections platform, that meant roughly 70,000 allocator searches in the last 90 days and more than 250,000 LP-to-GP profile clicks a year.
What does it take to make inbound work?
A complete, current, specific fund profile. Allocators browsing managers decide in seconds, so profile quality, not outreach volume, is what determines inbound meeting flow.
Outbound asks: who should we call? Inbound asks: who is already looking? A modern raise needs an answer to both. Build the list, work it, and make sure the allocators searching right now can find you, vet you, and book the meeting without waiting for your email. iConnections is the inbound layer built for exactly that, with 26,000+ active LPs and GPs on the network.
Global Alts Asia 2026 takes place November 16 to 18 at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. It is the Asia-Pacific capital introduction event where institutional allocators and fund managers hold pre-scheduled, one-on-one meetings: more than 5,000 across three days, with nearly half initiated by allocators. Registration is complimentary for qualified allocators who commit to taking onsite meetings. Managers attend on AUM-based pricing as iConnections members.
Asia-Pacific is where a growing share of alternatives capital is being allocated, and the hardest part of accessing it has never been interest. It is the logistics of getting the right allocators and the right managers in the same conversations. Global Alts Asia exists to remove that friction: three days of pre-scheduled, pre-vetted meetings at Marina Bay Sands, with the scheduling done on the iConnections platform before anyone boards a plane.
Global Alts Asia is iConnections’ Asia-Pacific flagship capital introduction event. It brings together institutional allocators and fund managers for one-on-one meetings, curated panels, and discussions led by industry thought leaders.
The 2026 edition runs November 16 to 18 at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. It is part of the Global Alts series alongside Miami, New York, and, from 2027, Europe.
Every meeting is scheduled in advance through the iConnections platform. Attendees build their schedules before they arrive, so the three days onsite are spent in qualified conversations rather than open networking.
Two features define the format. First, meetings are pre-vetted for fit: you choose who you see based on strategy, track record, and mandate. Second, a large share of meetings are allocator-initiated, which means managers are frequently meeting LPs who asked to see them. Across Global Alts Asia, more than 5,000 one-on-one meetings run across the three days.
The allocator side spans single family offices, multi-family offices, funds of funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations, banks and insurers, and pensions. Family offices make up the largest share of the allocator audience, and the most common seniority levels are C-suite and founders, followed by directors and managers.
The manager side spans hedge fund strategies, long-only, private credit, digital assets, venture capital, liquid credit, real estate and infrastructure, multi-strategy, and private equity. By firm size, the audience ranges from sub-$100M emerging managers to platforms above $3B.
Service providers attend to reach both groups, through sponsorships, panels, and hosted experiences.
Registration is complimentary for qualified institutional allocators who commit to taking onsite meetings. Fund managers attend on AUM-based pricing and must be iConnections members. Service providers participate through tiered sponsorship packages.
Global Alts Asia has grown every year since launch. One-on-one meetings have risen from 962 in 2022 to more than 1,700 in 2023, more than 2,600 in 2024, and more than 3,100 in 2025, with roughly half of meetings allocator-initiated. The 2026 edition continues that trajectory.
When and where is Global Alts Asia 2026?
November 16 to 18, 2026, at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
How many meetings happen at Global Alts Asia?
More than 5,000 one-on-one meetings across three days, pre-scheduled and pre-vetted on the iConnections platform. Nearly half are allocator-initiated.
Is Global Alts Asia free for allocators?
Yes. Registration is complimentary for qualified institutional allocators who commit to taking onsite meetings.
Who should attend Global Alts Asia?
Institutional allocators looking to discover managers in Asia-Pacific, fund managers raising capital who want pre-scheduled LP meetings, and service providers who want to reach both.
If you allocate capital in Asia-Pacific, Global Alts Asia is three days of pre-scheduled meetings with managers you have already vetted for fit. If you are raising, it is the densest concentration of qualified, in-market allocators in the region. Registration is open. Allocators register free; managers get pricing through iConnections membership.
At Global Alts New York 2026, private equity ranked second among 20 strategies in stated LP interest, with 47% of 284 LP contacts naming it a priority. In confirmed meetings it ranked fifth, capturing 7% of activity against an 8% share of attending funds. Appetite is real and rejection is low, at 17%. What is missing is conversion, and the allocators themselves named the cause: strategy fit is the number one barrier to a new allocation, ahead of track record, liquidity terms, and fees. LP appetite for private equity is not a demand problem. It is a matching problem.
There are two ways to measure what allocators want. You can ask them, or you can watch what they do. Most industry research does the first. A platform that runs the meetings can do both, and when the two measurements disagree, the disagreement is usually more useful than either number on its own.
At Global Alts New York 2026, they disagreed about private equity.
.icpe-cta { background: #692B7E; border-radius: 16px; padding: 28px 40px; margin: 40px 0; font-family: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; } .icpe-cta * { box-sizing: border-box; } .icpe-cta__kicker { margin: 0 0 6px; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 600; color: #D1BDD7; } .icpe-cta__title { margin: 0 0 18px; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 700; color: #FFFFFF; line-height: 1.2; } .icpe-cta__action { margin: 0; } .icpe-cta__btn { display: inline-block; background: #FFFFFF; color: #692B7E; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; padding: 12px 32px; border-radius: 8px; } .icpe-cta__btn:hover { background: #F0EAF2; color: #4B1F59; } @media (max-width: 640px) { .icpe-cta { padding: 24px; } .icpe-cta__title { font-size: 22px; } .icpe-cta__btn { display: block; text-align: center; padding: 12px 24px; } }Ahead of the event, 284 LP contacts were asked which strategies they were interested in and which they were actively not. Private equity came second, with 47% naming it a priority. Only long/short equity scored higher, at 50%. Multi-strategy followed at 46%, global macro at 41%, and venture capital at 40%.
Raw interest tells only half the story, because a strategy can be widely liked and widely rejected at the same time. Netting rejection against interest gives a cleaner reading. Private equity was rejected by 17% of contacts, the fourth lowest rate of any strategy in the room, producing a net conviction score of +30 and a third place finish behind long/short equity and multi-strategy.
That combination matters. High interest paired with high rejection describes a polarizing strategy. High interest paired with low rejection describes a strategy with broad permission. Private equity sits in the second group. The allocators who do not want it are a clear minority.
Private equity at Global Alts New York 2026
#2
of 20 strategies by stated LP interest. 47% of contacts flagged it as a priority.
+30
net conviction score. Only 17% of allocators ruled private equity out.
7%
share of confirmed meetings, fifth among all strategies in the room.
0.88x
punching score, slightly below its 8% share of attending funds.
Then the event happened.
Across all confirmed meetings at Global Alts New York 2026, private equity captured 7% of total activity, placing it fifth among all strategies. Measured against its 8% share of attending funds, that produces a punching score of 0.88x, meaning it generated slightly fewer meetings than fund representation would predict.
This is not a collapse. Venture capital, which brought more funds to the room than any other strategy, converted at 0.67x. Private equity is in better shape than that. But it is not turning stated interest into meeting share the way private credit and long/short equity did, and that is the tension at the center of its event performance.
There are two ways to read the gap. Either allocators changed their minds between the survey and the schedule, or the interest was real and simply landed somewhere other than where managers were looking for it. The breakdown by LP type makes the second reading far more likely.
Demand for private equity is not evenly distributed across allocator types, and the distribution is counterintuitive.
Investment consultants allocated 14% of their confirmed meetings to private equity. That is nearly double the 7.3% event average and the highest reading of any LP type in the room. Public pension funds and multi-family offices each came in around 10%. Single family offices allocated 9%, slightly above average. Endowments and foundations were notably quiet, each below 3%.
PE share of confirmed meetings by LP type
Global Alts New York 2026. Event average: 7.3%.
Six of twelve LP types shown. Full breakdown, including endowments and foundations, in the Private Equity Investor Report 2026.
Now overlay the size of each group. Investment consultants are roughly 3% of all LP contacts at the event. Single family offices are 33%, the largest group by a wide margin. The most committed private equity audience in the room is also the smallest, and the largest audience is only mildly committed.
For a manager building a meeting schedule, that is a practical problem rather than a philosophical one. Volume comes from single family offices. Conviction comes from investment consultants. A schedule built only for volume fills the calendar with moderate interest. A schedule built only for conviction runs out of names by lunchtime. Both audiences have to be worked, and they have to be worked differently.
Allocators at the event were asked to name their single biggest barrier to allocating to a new fund. The answer reframes the entire conversation.
Strategy fit came first at 31%. Performance track record was second at 25%. Liquidity terms came third at 20%, which is unsurprising for an asset class built on long lock-up structures. Of the six options allocators could choose from, fees came last.
Biggest barrier to allocating to a new fund
Global Alts New York 2026, all strategies. Allocators selected one.
Top three of six options measured. Fees ranked last. Full ranking in the Private Equity Investor Report 2026.
Fees ranking last is the quietly useful finding in that set. For allocators still open to private equity, and the conviction data says most of them are, pricing is not the objection. Neither, primarily, is performance.
The objection is fit. If an allocator cannot quickly answer why this fund belongs in their specific portfolio, the conversation ends before it begins. That is a positioning failure rather than a performance failure, and it is the failure most likely to be sitting behind a 0.88x punching score.
Three things follow from the data.
Lead with fit, not with returns. Strategy fit is the number one barrier by a six point margin. The first question an allocator is answering is not how have you done, it is where do you belong. A deck that opens with performance is answering the second question first.
Segment by LP type, not by AUM. Investment consultants convert at nearly double the event average but are a small population. Family offices are the population. Treating them as one audience with one message is how a strong interest score turns into a middling meeting count.
Start before the room opens. The gap between stated interest and confirmed meetings closes in the weeks when allocators decide who is worth a slot. Managers who are already visible when that decision gets made are not competing for attention on the day.
The same data has a different use on the LP side.
It tells you where you sit relative to the room. An endowment or foundation running below 3% of meetings in private equity is aligned with its peer group. A family office at 9% is near the median. An investment consultant at 14% is at the front of the pack, which also means the managers who have not reached out are the ones who did not know to prioritize you.
It also tells you what the competitive set looks like. A 17% rejection rate is among the lowest of any strategy in the room, which means the allocators competing with you for capacity in a good fund are not a narrow group of specialists. They are most of the room.
Is LP appetite for private equity strong in 2026?
By the measures allocators state, yes. At Global Alts New York 2026, private equity ranked second of 20 strategies in stated LP interest, with 47% of 284 LP contacts naming it a priority, and posted a net conviction score of +30 against a 17% rejection rate.
Why do private equity managers get fewer meetings than LP interest suggests?
Private equity captured 7% of confirmed meetings against an 8% share of attending funds, a punching score of 0.88x. The barrier data points to positioning rather than demand: 31% of allocators name strategy fit as their single biggest obstacle to a new allocation, ahead of track record at 25% and liquidity terms at 20%. Fees ranked last of the six options measured.
Which LP types allocate most of their meetings to private equity?
Investment consultants led at 14% of their confirmed meetings, followed by public pension funds and multi-family offices at roughly 10% each, and single family offices at 9%. Endowments and foundations were each below 3%. The event average was 7.3%.
What is the biggest barrier to a new private equity allocation?
Strategy fit, at 31%, ahead of performance track record at 25% and liquidity terms at 20%. Fees ranked last of the six options allocators could choose from, which suggests price is not the obstacle for allocators still open to the asset class.
Private equity has the room’s attention. It ranked second in what allocators said they wanted and third in net conviction, and its rejection rate is among the lowest of any strategy in the market. What it has not done is convert that standing into meeting share.
That gap is not a verdict on the asset class. It is a positioning problem with a measurable cause, and the allocators named it themselves: fit comes before performance, and it comes a long way before price.
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There is no universal number, because it depends on strategy, check size, and how warm the meetings are. But the structure is consistent: funds are won through a funnel, and the funnel is wider at the top than most managers plan for. The two levers that move the number are meeting quality (qualified, pre-vetted, allocator-initiated) and continuity (staying in front of LPs year-round, not just at events). Platform data and Global Alts allocator commentary both point the same direction: a small fraction of meetings convert, so the job is to raise the conversion rate, not just the meeting count.
Ask a room of allocators how many managers they meet and how many they back, and the gap is the story. At Global Alts New York, one allocator described narrowing five managers out of roughly a thousand meetings-worth of pipeline into actual allocations. That is an extreme ratio, but the direction is universal: allocators see far more managers than they will ever invest with. For a manager running a raise, the practical question is not the abstract average. It is how many of your meetings are with allocators who are genuinely in-market for your strategy, and how many of those you convert.
Think of a raise as a funnel with four stages: discovery (the allocator learns you exist), first meeting, diligence, and allocation. Attrition happens at every stage, and it is steepest at the top.
The stage most managers underestimate is discovery-to-first-meeting. Getting a first meeting with a qualified allocator is the hardest conversion in the funnel, because it is where cold outreach goes to die. Once an allocator has agreed to a meeting, the probability of progression rises sharply, which is why the quality of the meeting source matters more than the raw count.
Because a meeting with an allocator who is actively allocating to your strategy is worth many meetings with allocators who are not. This is where the source of the meeting changes the math.
A meeting that comes from cold outreach starts at low intent: the allocator did not ask to see you. A meeting that comes from a platform where the allocator searched for your strategy, viewed your profile, and requested the meeting starts at high intent. On iConnections, nearly half of live event meetings are initiated by allocators, which means the funnel is pre-loaded with intent before the first conversation.
The practical implication: ten allocator-initiated meetings can be worth more than fifty cold ones. Managers who treat the top of the funnel as a volume problem end up doing more meetings for the same result. Managers who treat it as a targeting problem raise the conversion rate instead.
A well-run capital introduction event compresses the top of the funnel. Instead of booking meetings one at a time over months, a manager can hold a dense schedule of pre-scheduled, pre-vetted meetings in a few days, then move the qualified ones into diligence.
Global Alts events are built for exactly this: meetings are scheduled on the platform before attendees arrive, so the time onsite is spent in qualified conversations. At Global Alts Asia, that has meant more than 5,000 one-on-one meetings across three days.
The managers who need the fewest meetings are the ones allocators already know. If an allocator has seen your profile, read your commentary, and watched your updates between events, the first meeting starts further down the funnel.
That is the argument for treating fundraising as continuous rather than episodic. A platform keeps your fund visible to allocators who are searching between events, so by the time you meet, some of the discovery and credibility work is already done. Over a full raise, that continuity is what brings the total number of meetings required down.
The meeting count is downstream of things you can actually control. If you want the mechanics behind each lever, our breakdown of how fund managers get warm introductions to allocators explains where allocator-initiated meetings come from, and continuous capital introduction vs. event-based fundraising covers why the months between events are where most funnels leak. On the input side, what institutional allocators look for when screening fund managers shows what earns a first meeting in the first place, while the ROI of year-round capital introduction puts a cost against every meeting you book. For the current allocator picture, the Midyear Global Investor Report 2026 covers the top barrier keeping LPs from committing to a new fund.
How many LP meetings does it take to close a fund?
There is no single number; it depends on strategy, check size, and meeting quality. The consistent pattern is a funnel with steep attrition at the top, which is why conversion rate matters more than meeting count.
Do allocator-initiated meetings convert better?
Yes. A meeting the allocator asked for starts at higher intent than one from cold outreach. On iConnections, nearly half of live event meetings are allocator-initiated.
Do events reduce the number of meetings needed?
They compress the top of the funnel by concentrating pre-scheduled, pre-vetted meetings into a few days. Global Alts Asia runs more than 5,000 one-on-one meetings across three days.
How can I lower the number of meetings my raise requires?
Raise meeting quality (target allocators actively in-market for your strategy) and stay visible year-round so first meetings start further down the funnel.
You cannot control how many meetings a raise takes in the abstract, but you can control the two levers that move it: how qualified the meetings are, and how visible you stay between them. Focus on allocator-initiated, pre-vetted meetings and continuous engagement, and the total takes care of itself. iConnections is built around both.
A capital introduction platform is a two-sided network where institutional allocators and fund managers discover each other, signal intent, and schedule meetings, year-round and online. It differs from a data provider (which tells you who to call) and from a conference (which concentrates meetings into a few days) by making the introduction itself the product: searchable, continuous, and measurable. iConnections is the capital introduction platform built for alternatives, with 26,000+ active LPs and GPs and $55T+ in represented capital on the network.
Allocators do not struggle to find fund managers. They struggle to find the right ones, at the right time, with enough signal to justify a meeting. Managers do not struggle to build target lists. They struggle to get a qualified allocator to actually take the meeting. Both problems are the same problem: discovery and introduction, at scale, with trust. That is the problem a capital introduction platform exists to solve.
A capital introduction platform sits between two groups who need each other but lack an efficient way to connect. On one side are allocators: pension funds, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, funds of funds, and RIAs. On the other side are fund managers: hedge funds, private equity, private credit, real assets, venture capital, and digital assets. The platform gives both sides a persistent, searchable presence and a structured way to meet.
In practice that means four things. Allocators can search and filter managers by strategy, track record, firm size, and mandate fit, and review profiles and materials on their own schedule. Managers can see which allocators are active, what those allocators are looking at, and when interest is genuine rather than cold. Both sides can request and schedule meetings inside the platform instead of through email chains. And every interaction becomes data that makes the next match better.
The result is that the introduction stops being a favor you cash in and starts being infrastructure you rely on.
This is the distinction that matters most, because the two are often confused.
A data provider answers the question “who should I be talking to?” It maintains records on funds, allocators, and historical allocations so you can build a target list and conduct research. That is genuinely useful, and most serious fundraising teams keep a data subscription for exactly that purpose. But a data provider is one-sided: the allocator is a row in a database, and they do not know you are looking at them.
A capital introduction platform answers a different question: “who is already interested, and how do I meet them?” The allocator is a participant, not a record. They manage their own profile, browse managers, and signal intent. On iConnections, nearly half of live event meetings are initiated by allocators, not managers, which is the clearest sign of a genuinely two-sided system.
The two are complements, not substitutes. Research tells you where to aim. A capital introduction platform is where the meeting actually happens.
A conference compresses introductions into a few days in one city. A capital introduction platform makes them continuous. The strongest version of the model combines both: a year-round platform for discovery and relationship management, plus flagship in-person events where the highest-density meeting schedules happen.
iConnections runs four flagship capital introduction events each year: Global Alts Miami, Global Alts New York, Global Alts Asia, and, from 2027, Global Alts Europe. These are not conferences in the traditional sense. Meetings are pre-scheduled on the platform before attendees arrive, so the time onsite is spent in qualified one-on-one conversations rather than hallway networking.
Both sides of the market, for different reasons.
Allocators use it to discover managers they would not otherwise find, including emerging managers without a long placement-agent relationship, and to do it on their own terms and timeline. On iConnections, the allocator base spans single family offices, multi-family offices, funds of funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, and pensions, with family offices making up the largest share.
Managers use it to get in front of allocators who are actively allocating, to compress months of outreach into a structured pipeline, and to track engagement instead of guessing at it. The manager base skews toward hedge fund strategies and private credit, which together account for the majority of managers on the platform.
Service providers use it to reach both groups in one place.
Five things separate a real capital introduction platform from a directory with a login.
First, two-sided activity. If only managers are active and allocators are passive records, it is a database, not a platform. Second, verified participation: profiles should be maintained by the members themselves, not scraped or analyst-maintained. Third, behavioral signal: the platform should tell you what allocators are doing now, not what they allocated to years ago. Fourth, meeting infrastructure: scheduling, document sharing, and follow-up should live inside the platform. Fifth, scale: the network has to be large enough that discovery actually works.
On iConnections, allocators run roughly 70,000 AI-powered searches for managers in a quarter, and LP-to-GP profile clicks run at more than 250,000 a year. That is the activity level at which discovery stops being theoretical.
For an emerging manager, the math is usually the deciding factor. Cold outreach and placement agents are expensive in time or fees, and both favor managers who already have brand recognition. A capital introduction platform levels that: every firm, whether a $50B platform or a $200M emerging manager, gets access to the same allocators. The differentiator becomes the quality of the profile and the fit, not the size of the Rolodex.
What is a capital introduction platform?
A capital introduction platform is a two-sided network where institutional allocators and fund managers discover each other, signal intent, and schedule meetings year-round. It makes the introduction itself the product: searchable, continuous, and measurable.
How is a capital introduction platform different from a data provider?
A data provider tells you who to call and maintains historical records for research. A capital introduction platform is where allocators actively participate, browse managers, and initiate meetings. One builds your target list; the other is where the meeting happens. Most fundraising teams use both.
How is it different from a conference?
A conference compresses introductions into a few days in one city. A capital introduction platform makes them continuous and year-round. The strongest model combines both: a platform for ongoing discovery plus flagship in-person events for high-density, pre-scheduled meetings.
Who uses a capital introduction platform?
Institutional allocators (pensions, endowments, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, funds of funds, RIAs) use it to discover managers. Fund managers (hedge funds, PE, private credit, real assets, VC) use it to get in front of qualified allocators. Service providers use it to reach both.
Is iConnections a capital introduction platform?
Yes. iConnections is the LP-GP capital introduction platform for alternatives, with 26,000+ active LPs and GPs, $55T+ in represented capital, and four flagship capital introduction events each year.
Capital introduction used to run on personal networks, placement agents, and a handful of conferences. A capital introduction platform turns that into infrastructure: always on, two-sided, and measurable. If you are an allocator, it is how you find the managers you would otherwise miss. If you are a manager, it is how you get in front of allocators who are actually looking. iConnections is built for exactly that. See how the platform works, or explore the insights and research coming out of the network.
The ROI of year-round capital introduction comes from replacing episodic, high-cost fundraising activities with a continuous, technology-enabled process that keeps allocators engaged across the full allocation cycle. For fund managers, the savings show up in reduced IR hours, lower event and travel spend, compressed fundraising timelines, and meetings with allocators who are already screened and mandate-matched.
Before evaluating what a year-round platform saves, it helps to understand what the traditional fundraising model costs. Fund managers rarely tally the full expense because the components are spread across budgets, calendars, and tools.
Event costs. A single industry event can cost a fund manager tens of thousands of dollars when you add registration, sponsorship, travel, lodging, and the time cost of prep. Multiply that across several events per year, and the annual event budget alone can exceed six figures for a mid-sized firm.
Cold outreach hours. IR teams spend hours building lists, sourcing contacts, crafting emails, and following up. Most of those emails go unanswered. The hit rate on cold outreach to institutional allocators is low, and the time spent on it is time not spent on existing relationships or strategy work.
Scattered tools. Fund managers often stitch together a CRM, a contact database, a separate document-sharing system, an email tracking tool, and a spreadsheet to manage pipeline. Each tool has its own subscription cost, and none of them talk to each other.
Database subscriptions. Allocator databases charge premium prices for access to contact information that may or may not be current. The data is static. It does not tell you whether an allocator is actively deploying, what their mandate looks like, or whether they are screening for your strategy right now.
The aggregate cost is substantial, but it is hidden because it is distributed. The question is not whether these costs exist but whether there is a more efficient alternative.
The iConnections platform consolidates the fundraising workflow into a single, continuous process. Instead of building lists and sending cold emails, fund managers are discovered by allocators who are actively searching. Instead of paying for scattered tools, managers have pipeline management, document sharing, meeting scheduling, and allocator engagement in one place.
Compressed timelines. Mandate-matched meetings mean the allocator is already interested before the conversation starts. There is no cold-to-warm-to-meeting pipeline that takes months. The compression of that cycle saves IR hours and shortens the overall fundraising window.
IR hours saved. When allocators come to you, the IR team spends less time on outbound prospecting and more time on qualified conversations. The shift from outbound-heavy to inbound-supported fundraising changes the IR cost per meeting significantly.
The value of year-round capital introduction also shows up in qualitative ways that are harder to quantify but no less important.
Meeting quality. A mandate-matched meeting is structurally different from a cold-scheduled meeting. The allocator has already seen your profile, reviewed your materials, and confirmed that your strategy fits their mandate. The conversation starts at a deeper level. This means each meeting has a higher probability of advancing to diligence.
Coverage of missing LPs. Fund managers often focus on the allocators they already know. The iConnections platform surfaces allocators who are actively searching for your strategy but who you may not have on your existing list. This expands the universe of potential commitments without expanding the IR team.
Compounding relationships. Event-based fundraising creates a spike of activity followed by silence. Year-round engagement means the relationship with an allocator compounds over time. An allocator who discovered you at Global Alts New York can follow your profile, track your performance, and reconnect at Global Alts Miami without either side doing manual outreach. The compounding happens because the platform keeps the relationship alive between the data points.
Allocator-initiated discovery. When ~50% of meetings on the iConnections platform are allocator-initiated, the fundraising model flips. Managers do not need to chase every meeting. A meaningful portion of their pipeline comes from allocators who found them first.
Is a capital introduction platform worth it for fund managers?
For most fund managers, the consolidation of tools, reduction in IR hours, and compression of fundraising timelines create measurable savings.
What costs does a year-round platform replace?
A year-round platform replaces scattered tools, reduces event and travel spend, and cuts IR hours spent on cold outreach by enabling allocator-initiated, mandate-matched meetings.
How does meeting quality factor into fundraising ROI?
Mandate-matched meetings on the iConnections platform start with confirmed allocator intent, which means each meeting has a higher probability of advancing to diligence compared to cold-scheduled meetings. This improves the return on IR time even when the cost per meeting is similar.
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