Global Alts 2024: The Largest Cap Intro Event is Set to Make Waves

The best way to understand a fundraising platform is to ask the people raising on it. Below is what fund managers across hedge funds, real estate private equity, and other strategies say about iConnections and Violet, its AI-powered platform: what they value, what changed in how they raise, and where the platform fits alongside the rest of their fundraising work.

What do fund managers say is the biggest difference?

Relevance. Almost every manager comes back to the same idea: the platform puts them in front of allocators whose mandates actually match their strategy, instead of a list of names that may or may not care.

“I judge every fundraising channel by one question: is this getting me closer to a real conversation with a real allocator? The signals and intelligence behind each match mean my pitch lands with LPs who actually care about my strategy, not a curated list that goes cold.” (Partner and Head of Research / Capital Markets, long-biased equity hedge fund)

“Fundraising lives and dies on the relevance of who you’re talking to. Violet’s filtering and AI-driven discovery does for me what a year of cold outreach couldn’t, surfacing allocators whose mandates genuinely align with our long/short strategy.” (Director of Investor Relations and Business Development, long/short equity hedge fund)

The pattern behind those comments is structural. On Violet, funds are matched continuously against live allocator mandates and search behavior, and allocators ran roughly 70,000 AI-powered searches for managers in the last 90 days. The match happens on intent, not on whether a manager happened to send the right email at the right time.

Does it replace cold outreach?

Managers describe it less as a replacement and more as the channel that makes outreach worth doing. GP survey responses collected by iConnections put it this way:

“Instead of broad, passive networking or cold outreach, the meetings are intentional and relevant, which leads to real conversations about strategy and fit.”

“iConnections allows us to engage with LPs in a more intentional way than traditional conferences or outbound outreach. The curated nature ensures conversations are relevant.”

“Violet is efficient with the filtering function. I can look for targets at scale instead of prowling the internet, which would take forever and produce half as many leads.”

One reason is meeting direction. LPs initiate roughly half of all meetings on the platform, so a meaningful share of a manager’s calendar fills with allocators who asked for the conversation.

What do smaller and specialist managers say?

For focused firms, the value is reach they could not build alone, and preparation that makes each meeting count.

“We’re a focused real estate private equity firm, so every investor meeting matters. Violet gives us reach we could never build on our own, and the AI-generated meeting briefs help us walk into every conversation already prepared.” (Director, Fundraising and Investments, real estate private equity firm)

That comment reflects how the platform is designed. Whether a firm manages $50B or $200M, every manager gets access to the same allocators, and matching surfaces fit rather than firm size. For specialist and emerging managers, that is the difference between competing on relevance and competing on brand.

How do managers describe the time savings?

The word that comes up most is months. GP survey responses describe conversations that “would normally take months to set up” and “decision-oriented conversations that would otherwise take months to coordinate.”

“iConnections puts the right LPs in one place and makes it easy to have focused, pre-qualified conversations that would normally take months to set up.”

“iConnections provides a year-round, highly efficient digital platform connecting us directly with qualified LPs for targeted discovery, meeting booking, and relationship nurturing.”

The time savings come from removing the steps between discovery and a meeting: one-click meeting requests with calendar and time zone handling, pre-event scheduling for Global Alts, roadshow planning against live LP availability by city, and a shared document library where managers can see which LPs opened their deck, DDQ, or track record.

What do managers say about the events?

Managers consistently single out the structured, pre-scheduled meeting format at Global Alts events. Every meeting is booked on the platform before attendees arrive, so the days onsite are spent in qualified conversations rather than open networking. As one GP survey response put it, “the structured meeting format enables meaningful, decision-oriented conversations that would otherwise take months to coordinate.”

The relationships do not end when the event does. Connections made at Global Alts continue on Violet year-round, where follow-ups, pipeline tracking, and document sharing keep the conversation moving between events.

Who is iConnections a good fit for?

Based on what managers say, the platform delivers the most for funds that:

Are actively raising and want meetings with allocators whose mandates fit, rather than a larger contact list.

Are emerging or specialist managers who need reach and trust signals they cannot build alone. The Get Verified program, with returns submitted directly by more than 45 integrated fund administrators, is especially valuable here.

Want to fundraise year-round instead of only around events, with visibility into which LPs are engaging and when.

Managers who rely entirely on a handful of existing relationships, or who are not currently raising, will get less from it. The platform rewards funds that keep their profiles current and treat fundraising as continuous.

Frequently asked questions

What do fund managers say about iConnections?

Managers most often cite relevance: Violet surfaces allocators whose mandates match their strategy, so meetings are with LPs who care about what they do. They also highlight time savings, allocator-initiated meetings, AI-generated meeting briefs, and the pre-scheduled meeting format at Global Alts events.

Is iConnections legitimate for fund managers?

Yes. iConnections is the largest active alternative investment network, with more than 26,000 LPs, GPs, and service providers representing $55T+ in assets, and runs the Global Alts flagship events in Miami, New York, Asia, and Europe.

Is iConnections worth it for an emerging manager?

Emerging managers describe the main value as reach and access they could not build alone. Every manager reaches the same allocators regardless of firm size, matching is based on fit, and the Get Verified program gives smaller funds a third-party trust signal.

What is Violet?

Violet is the AI-powered platform built by iConnections, where allocators and fund managers discover each other, share documents, and schedule meetings year-round.

Raising a hedge fund in 2026 is a paradox. Allocator interest in hedge fund strategies is the strongest in years, yet the bar to win an allocation has never been higher. Liquid, flexible strategies are exactly what LPs say they want, and they are also what LPs are busiest pruning and replacing. This playbook covers what allocators are actually looking for right now, where they find managers, and the steps that turn interest into a commitment.

Is 2026 a good year to raise a hedge fund?

Yes, for the right fund. The demand data is unusually clear.

In the iConnections Global Allocator Report 2026, produced with J.P. Morgan Asset Management and drawn from more than 500 global allocators, hedge fund strategies ranked highest in LP interest and showed the lowest share of allocators explicitly saying they were not interested. More than 40% of LPs at Global Alts Miami 2026 expressed interest in eight major strategies, and six of them sit in or alongside the hedge fund universe: long/short equity, multi-strategy, event driven, global macro, relative value, and liquid credit. Two-thirds of allocators planned to increase their alternatives allocation for the year.

The midyear read confirmed it. In the Midyear 2026 Global Investor Report, long/short equity led net LP conviction across 21 alternative strategies at +37, with multi-strategy right behind at +35.

The reason is not hard to find. Allocators named global macro risk (26%) and insufficient liquidity (25%) as the two largest threats to their portfolios. Strategies that can navigate volatility and return capital when needed answer both concerns at once.

Why is it still so hard to close?

Because strong demand for the category does not mean demand for every fund in it.

Three forces make 2026 more competitive than the headline numbers suggest. First, allocators are recycling capital rather than adding it blindly: three-quarters of LPs reported making at least one redemption in 2025, with 46% withdrawing from public strategies. That pruning is paired with an intent to redeploy into higher-conviction managers, which means every new allocation is also a replacement decision.

Second, selection is brutally narrow. On stage at Global Alts New York 2026, Art Vinokur of Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions put the base rate plainly: in a typical year his team might hire five managers out of a thousand meetings. Half a percent.

Third, fit outranks performance at the door. Allocators at Global Alts New York named strategy fit as the number one barrier to a new allocation, at 31%, ahead of track record at 25%. A strong track record earns the meeting; it does not earn the allocation.

Step 1: Define exactly where your fund belongs in an LP portfolio

Before any outreach, write one sentence that answers the allocator’s real question: what job does this fund do in my portfolio that nothing I already own does?

Allocators are building portfolios to survive macro shocks and liquidity crunches, so the strongest positioning connects the strategy to those specific concerns. Uncorrelated return, downside behavior in drawdowns, liquidity terms, capacity, and how the fund behaved during the last period of stress are the answers that move a conversation forward. Vague diversification language does not survive a first meeting in a market where allocators are actively replacing managers.

Step 2: Build a profile that wins a ten-second screen

Manager discovery in 2026 is still overwhelmingly relationship-driven: nearly 80% of LPs say they find new managers through their professional networks, and more than half cite conferences and industry events as a primary sourcing channel. The difference now is that much of that networking happens on platforms, where allocators search before they ever take a meeting.

On Violet, the iConnections platform, allocators ran roughly 70,000 AI-powered searches for managers in the last 90 days, filtering by strategy, geography, fund size, and track record profile. A complete, specific profile is what turns a search result into a meeting request. That means a precise strategy description, current AUM and terms, an up-to-date deck and DDQ, and a track record presented the way allocators compare managers.

Verification closes the trust gap. Through the Get Verified program, a fund administrator submits returns directly, and allocators can filter specifically for funds carrying that checkmark. For an emerging hedge fund without brand recognition, admin-verified numbers substitute for the reputation it has not had time to build.

Step 3: Get in front of allocators who are already looking

Cold outreach scales with hours and lands on people who did not ask to hear from you. The more efficient path is to be visible where in-market allocators are searching, and to let them initiate.

On Violet, LPs initiate roughly half of all platform meetings, and funds are matched continuously against live allocator mandates, so a profile surfaces when an allocator’s intent lines up with the strategy. Managers see who viewed their profile and which LPs opened their materials, which tells them where the warm conversations are before they pick up the phone.

As one long/short equity hedge fund’s head of investor relations put it: “Fundraising lives and dies on the relevance of who you’re talking to. Violet’s filtering and AI-driven discovery does for me what a year of cold outreach couldn’t, surfacing allocators whose mandates genuinely align with our long/short strategy.”

Step 4: Use events to compress the calendar

Capital introduction events turn months of scheduling into days. At Global Alts events, every meeting is pre-scheduled on the platform before attendees arrive, and nearly half are initiated by allocators. Hedge funds are the largest manager group in these rooms: at Global Alts Europe, for example, 43% of expected fund managers run hedge fund strategies.

The event works best as the conversion layer on top of year-round visibility. The allocator who books you at an event has often already found your profile, viewed your deck, and decided the strategy might fit. The upcoming calendar includes Global Alts Asia (November 16 to 18, Singapore), Global Alts Miami (February 22 to 25, 2027), and Global Alts Europe (April 28 to 29, 2027, Paris).

Step 5: Run diligence like it never stops, because it does not

Hedge fund diligence runs on and off the list. Allocators check references with former colleagues, compare what the manager says against what the market says, and look closely at consistency between the pitch, the documents, and the numbers. As Jamie Rhode of Screendoor said at Global Alts New York: “If you’re not transparent about things, things come out in the end and LPs will find that out. That is our job to find that out.”

The practical response is to make transparency easy: keep documents current in one place, answer the drawdown question before it is asked, and track which LPs are engaging with which materials so follow-up lands while interest is live. Hedge fund raises are rarely won in the first meeting; they are won in the weeks of consistent, well-documented follow-through after it.

Frequently asked questions

How do hedge funds raise capital in 2026?

Through a combination of year-round visibility where allocators search, targeted meetings with in-market LPs, capital introduction events with pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings, and disciplined follow-up through diligence. Positioning around fit, liquidity, and downside behavior matters more than headline returns.

Are allocators interested in hedge funds right now?

Yes. In the iConnections Global Allocator Report 2026, hedge fund strategies ranked highest in LP interest with the lowest rejection rates, and long/short equity (+37) and multi-strategy (+35) led net LP conviction in the Midyear 2026 Global Investor Report.

What is the biggest barrier to a new hedge fund allocation?

Strategy fit. Allocators at Global Alts New York 2026 named it the top barrier at 31%, ahead of track record at 25%.

How do emerging hedge fund managers find investors?

By building a complete, specific profile where allocators search, using admin verification to establish trust, letting allocators initiate meetings through matching, and using events to concentrate meetings. On Violet, every manager reaches the same allocators regardless of firm size.

What is the best way to raise capital for a hedge fund?

Combine a sharp fit statement with year-round visibility on a capital introduction platform, verified performance data, pre-scheduled event meetings, and transparent, well-tracked follow-up. Most commitments come from allocators who were already looking.

There is a conversation happening inside every institutional portfolio right now: how much of the AI buildout to own, and in what form. The chips, the data centers, the power grid, the frontier models, the pre-IPO names approaching the market. On November 17 and 18, the people who actually run those companies and allocate that capital will be in one room for the first time, at the inaugural TomorrowX Summit at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas.

What is TomorrowX Summit?

TomorrowX Summit is a new two-day event built by iConnections, Atreides, and Valor Equity Partners, three firms that live at the intersection of capital and technology. It is designed as two days with the CEOs, investors, and operators who move TMT: main stage keynotes, breakout Q&A, and one-on-one meetings.

The premise is simple. The technology industry and the investment industry increasingly price the same questions from opposite sides: where AI demand is going, what the buildout costs, who funds it, and what it returns. TomorrowX puts both sides in one room and lets them talk.

Who is on the stage?

The inaugural speaker lineup spans the full AI stack, from silicon to software to the capital behind it all.

Jensen Huang, President and CEO of NVIDIA, headlines, alongside Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone. From the chip and infrastructure layer: Rene Haas, CEO of Arm; Andrew Feldman, Co-Founder and CEO of Cerebras; Jitendra Mohan, CEO of Astera Labs; and Chase Lochmiller, Co-Founder, CEO and Chairman of Crusoe. From the AI software frontier: Ali Ghodsi, CEO and Co-Founder of Databricks; Lin Qiao, CEO and Co-Founder of Fireworks; Scott Wu, CEO of Cognition AI; and Guillermo Rauch, Founder and CEO of Vercel.

The investor and operator bench includes Gavin Baker, Managing Partner and CIO of Atreides Management; Antonio Gracias, Founder, CEO and CIO of Valor Equity Partners; Joe Lonsdale, Founder and Managing Partner of 8VC; David George, General Partner at a16z; Glenn Solomon, Managing Director of Notable Capital; Zach Dell, Co-Founder and CEO of Base Power; Dylan Field, CEO of Figma; and Ron Biscardi, Co-Founder and CEO of iConnections.

What will be covered?

Five breakout tracks structure the two days.

The Labs: frontier models and where demand is going. The Silicon: chips, networking, and the AI buildout. The Power: grid, data centers, and energy for scale. The Capital: public equity, crossover, and FinX. And What Is Next: pre-IPO names approaching the market.

The track design mirrors how allocators are actually segmenting the AI question inside their own portfolios, which is deliberate: the content is built to be useful to the people allocating, not just the people building.

Why Austin, and why now?

Because the AI capital cycle has become the single largest driver of positioning across both public and private markets, and the two communities making those decisions rarely share a room. The allocators funding the buildout usually hear about it in quarterly letters. The companies building it usually meet capital one roadshow at a time. TomorrowX compresses both into two days.

Austin is the right city for it: the center of gravity of American technology has been drifting toward Texas for a decade, and the Moody Center gives the format a main stage built for keynote-scale moments.

Who should attend?

Institutional allocators evaluating AI exposure across asset classes, from public equity to venture to infrastructure. Technology and growth investors tracking the crossover window. And the operators and founders building the companies the first two groups are pricing. One-on-one meetings are built into the format, so the two days are as much about who you sit down with as who you hear on stage.

Frequently asked questions

When and where is TomorrowX Summit 2026?
November 17 to 18, 2026, at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas.

Who is behind TomorrowX Summit?
TomorrowX Summit is built by three firms: iConnections, the AI-powered capital introduction platform; Atreides, the crossover investment firm; and Valor Equity Partners, the operationally driven growth firm.

Who is speaking at TomorrowX Summit?
The inaugural lineup includes Jensen Huang (NVIDIA), Jon Gray (Blackstone), Rene Haas (Arm), Ali Ghodsi (Databricks), Gavin Baker (Atreides), Antonio Gracias (Valor), Andrew Feldman (Cerebras), Chase Lochmiller (Crusoe), Jitendra Mohan (Astera Labs), Lin Qiao (Fireworks), Scott Wu (Cognition AI), Joe Lonsdale (8VC), Dylan Field (Figma), Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), and Ron Biscardi (iConnections), among others.

What topics does TomorrowX cover?
The full AI capital stack: frontier models, chips and the buildout, energy and data centers, public equity and crossover capital, and the pre-IPO names approaching the market.

Every quarter, allocators run tens of thousands of searches for fund managers on Violet, the iConnections platform. That search activity is the closest thing the alternatives industry has to a real-time demand signal: not what allocators say in surveys, but what they actually look for when they are searching. Heading into Q4, the picture is one of a market that is active, selective, and searching with intent.

The scale of the signal

Allocators initiated roughly 70,000 AI-powered searches for managers on Violet, the iConnections platform over the last 90 days, out of more than 100,000 total AI searches across the network. LP-to-GP profile clicks run at more than 250,000 a year.

Two properties make this data worth reading. First, it is first-party: every search comes from an allocator actively using the network, not a panel respondent recalling intent. Second, it is behavioral: a search is an action with a cost, which makes it a far cleaner signal than a stated preference. When an allocator searches, something in their portfolio process is moving.

What searching actually means

Allocator searches on the platform skew toward mandate-driven queries: strategy, track record profile, firm size, and fit. That matters because it distinguishes this activity from casual browsing. The typical allocator search is the start of a funnel, and the funnel is steep: at Global Alts New York 2026, one allocator described hiring five managers out of roughly a thousand meetings in a typical year.

For managers, the implication is direct. The search happens before the meeting, often weeks before. A fund that is findable and complete at the moment of the search competes for the meeting; a fund that is not, simply never appears.

Demand heading into Q4

The broader allocator picture entering the fourth quarter comes from the Midyear 2026 Global Investor Report, fielded against nearly 1,000 allocators convened at Global Alts New York and a survey of almost 120 global LPs. 59% planned to increase their alternatives allocation, against just 2% planning to decrease. At the same time, 11% were unsure of their allocation plans, up from 1% in 2025, and 80% cited geopolitical risk as a top concern, up from 61%.

Read together with the search data, the shape of Q4 demand is consistent: appetite is intact, but decisions are slower and more selective. Capital is still moving into alternatives; it is just taking a harder look on the way in. The strategies leading net LP conviction at midyear were long/short equity (+37), multi-strategy (+35), and private equity (+30), with the report’s more nuanced finding reserved for private credit: strong on paper, divided in the room.

What this means for managers raising into year-end

Three practical conclusions follow from a market that is searching more and deciding more slowly.

First, visibility timing matters more than ever. An undecided allocator defaults to the managers they already know, so the funds that surface in Q4 searches are the ones that stayed findable through Q3. Going quiet between events is the most expensive choice a raising manager can make.

Second, fit is the filter. With strategy fit named by allocators as the number one barrier to a new allocation (31% in the Global Alts New York data, ahead of track record at 25% and fees last), the profile and the pitch both need to answer “where does this fund belong” before they answer “how has it performed.”

Third, the fourth quarter concentrates the calendar. Global Alts Asia runs November 16 to 18 in Singapore, and the meetings there are pre-scheduled on the platform in the weeks before, which means the allocator decisions about who to meet in Singapore are being made now.

Frequently asked questions

How many searches do allocators run on the iConnections platform?
Allocators initiated roughly 70,000 AI-powered searches for managers over the last 90 days, out of more than 100,000 total AI searches across the network.

Are allocators still increasing alternatives allocations in late 2026?
Yes. The Midyear 2026 Global Investor Report found 59% of LPs planning to increase their alternatives allocation and just 2% planning to decrease, though 11% were unsure of their plans, up from 1% in 2025.

What do allocators search for when looking for fund managers?
Mandate-driven criteria: strategy, track record profile, firm size, and fit, using filters and AI-powered search across the fund universe on the platform.

Capital introduction has become infrastructure, and the market now has enough platforms, databases, and events claiming the category that choosing between them is its own problem. Most of them do something useful. Few of them do the same thing. This is a practical rubric for evaluating a capital introduction platform: five tests that separate a real two-sided network from a directory with a login, and the questions to ask before you commit budget.

What is a capital introduction platform, briefly?

A capital introduction platform is a two-sided network where institutional allocators and fund managers discover each other, signal intent, and schedule meetings. It is distinct from a data provider, which tells you who to call, and from a conference, which concentrates meetings into a few days. The platform makes the introduction itself the product: searchable, continuous, and measurable.

That definition is the starting point for evaluation, because the fastest way to misjudge a platform is to compare it against the wrong category. A tool that is excellent at being a database is not therefore a capital introduction platform, and holding it to this rubric will (correctly) show that.

Test 1: Is it genuinely two-sided?

The first and most important test. In a real capital introduction platform, both allocators and managers are active participants: allocators maintain their own profiles, search, and request meetings, and managers do the same from their side. In a one-sided system, only one group is active and the other is a set of records.

The question to ask: do allocators log in and do things here, or are they just listed? If the allocator is a row in a database who has no idea you are looking at them, you are evaluating a research tool, not an introduction platform. A useful proxy is meeting direction: on a genuinely two-sided network, a meaningful share of meetings are allocator-initiated. On Violet, the iConnections platform, nearly half of meetings are started by allocators.

Test 2: Is participation verified?

Profiles should be maintained by the members themselves and, where it matters, backed by third-party verification. Analyst-maintained or scraped profiles drift out of date and carry no signal of current intent.

The question to ask: who controls the profile, and is the performance data self-reported or verified? The strongest version pairs member-managed profiles with an administrator-verification option, so fund returns come directly from the fund administrator rather than a marketing deck. Verification is especially decisive for emerging managers, for whom it substitutes for brand recognition.

Test 3: Does it show behavioral signal, not just history?

A database tells you what an allocator did years ago. A platform tells you what they are doing now: which managers they are searching for, whose profiles they are viewing, which documents they are downloading, and who is coming back for a second look.

The question to ask: can I see who engaged with my fund this week? Historical allocation data is valuable for building a target list, but it is a research hypothesis, not a live pipeline signal. A platform worth paying for turns engagement into something you can see and act on in real time.

Test 4: Is the meeting infrastructure actually built in?

Discovery is only half the job. The platform should also run the mechanics: meeting requests, scheduling with calendar and time zone handling, document sharing with engagement tracking, and, ideally, roadshow planning against live allocator availability.

The question to ask: does the introduction happen inside the platform, or does it hand me off to email at the critical moment? A platform that surfaces a match but leaves the scheduling, document exchange, and follow-up to disconnected tools has outsourced the part that actually converts.

Test 5: Is the network big enough, and active enough?

Scale is a feature only if it comes with activity. A large directory of dormant profiles is worse than a smaller network of active ones, because it wastes the scarcest resource in fundraising, which is time.

The question to ask: how much real activity runs through the network, and over what period? Look for search volume, profile engagement, and meeting counts, not just a member headcount. For reference, Violet has more than 26,000 active members representing $55T+ in capital, with roughly 70,000 allocator-initiated searches every 90 days and more than 250,000 LP-to-GP profile clicks a year.

One more thing: continuity and events together

The strongest model is not platform or events. It is both. A year-round platform handles discovery and relationship management; flagship events concentrate the highest-density meeting schedules into a few days, with the meetings pre-scheduled on the platform before anyone travels.

When you evaluate a platform, ask whether its events and its software are the same system. If the event meetings are booked on the platform and the relationships continue there afterward, the two compound. If the event is a separate business bolted on, you lose the continuity that makes either one worth more.

Frequently asked questions

What should I look for in a capital introduction platform?
Five things: genuine two-sided activity (allocators participate, not just appear), verified member-managed profiles, real-time behavioral signal rather than only historical data, built-in meeting and document infrastructure, and a network that is both large and active. The strongest platforms also integrate year-round software with flagship events.

How is a capital introduction platform different from a database?
A database tells you who to call and maintains historical records for research. A capital introduction platform is where allocators actively participate, search, and request meetings. One builds your target list; the other is where the meeting happens. Many fundraising teams use both.

How do I evaluate whether a platform’s network is active?
Look past member headcount to activity metrics: search volume, profile views, document engagement, and meeting counts over a defined window. A large network of dormant profiles is worth less than a smaller, active one.

Is a capital introduction platform worth it for an emerging manager?
Often yes, because it levels access: every firm reaches the same allocators regardless of size, and verification can substitute for the brand recognition an emerging manager lacks. The differentiator becomes fit and profile quality, not the size of the Rolodex.

The iConnections platform is now Violet. The capital introduction platform where 26,000+ institutional allocators, fund managers, and service providers discover each other, signal intent, and schedule meetings, across a network representing more than $55T in capital. This is what Violet is and what it does day to day.

What is Violet?

Violet is the AI-powered capital introduction platform for alternative investments, built by iConnections. It is a two-sided network: allocators (pensions, endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, funds of funds, and RIAs) maintain their own profiles and search for managers, and fund managers (hedge funds, private equity, private credit, real assets, venture, and digital assets) maintain theirs and get discovered.

The scale of the network is the point. More than 26,000 active members use Violet, allocators initiated roughly 70,000 AI-powered searches for managers in the last 90 days, LP-to-GP profile clicks run at more than 250,000 a year, and the platform’s matching is informed by more than 60 billion data points. Nearly half of the meetings that happen through the network are initiated by allocators, not managers.

Violet is also the connective layer behind the Global Alts events. The pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings that define Global Alts Miami, New York, Asia, and Europe are built on Violet, which is how a single event can run more than 21,000 pre-vetted meetings across four days.

What does Violet actually do?

Five things, continuously.

Matching. Violet continuously matches funds against live allocator mandates and search behavior, so a manager’s profile surfaces when an allocator’s intent lines up with their strategy, not just when someone happens to browse.

Fundraising intelligence. Managers see who viewed their profile, which LPs downloaded their deck or DDQ, and who came back for a second look. Instead of guessing at engagement, the pipeline shows it in real time.

Document sharing. Pitch decks, DDQs, track records, and investor updates live in one centralized library per fund. LPs access them in one place; managers see exactly which LPs engaged with which materials, and how often.

Meeting infrastructure. One-click meeting requests, calendar sync, pre-event scheduling for Global Alts, and roadshows planned against live LP availability maps by city.

Verification. Through the Get Verified program, fund administrators submit returns directly, with more than 40 administrators integrated, so allocators can search specifically for funds carrying that trust signal.

Who is Violet for?

Allocators use Violet to discover managers they would not otherwise find, including emerging managers without a long placement-agent relationship, and to do it on their own schedule. 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 Violet 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. Whether a firm runs $50B or $200M, every manager gets access to the same allocators; the platform surfaces fit, not fame.

Service providers use Violet to reach both groups in one place.

Why the name?

What started as a place where LPs and GPs met has become the system that watches the network, remembers what matters, and keeps relationships moving between meetings, between events, all year. Violet is that system’s name.

Everything members already use is unchanged. Same network, same profiles, same events. The name is simply catching up to what the product has become.

Frequently asked questions

What is Violet?
Violet is the AI-powered capital introduction platform built by iConnections: a two-sided network where institutional allocators and fund managers discover each other, share documents, and schedule meetings, year-round.

Is Violet the same as iConnections?
Violet is the name of the iConnections platform. iConnections is the company and the network; Violet is the platform members log into.

How many people use Violet?
More than 26,000 active LPs, GPs, and service providers, representing $55T+ in capital, with roughly 70,000 allocator-initiated searches every 90 days.

What does Violet do for fund managers?
Continuous AI matching against live allocator mandates, real-time fundraising intelligence (profile views, document engagement), secure document sharing, one-click meeting scheduling, roadshow planning, and the optional Get Verified program with administrator-submitted returns.

Global Alts Europe 2027 takes place April 28 to 29 at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, the European debut of the Global Alts capital introduction series. Two days, 400+ institutional allocators, 300+ fund managers, and more than 4,000 pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings, with nearly half initiated by allocators. Registration is complimentary for qualified allocators who commit to taking 12 onsite meetings.

The Global Alts format, pre-scheduled, pre-vetted, one-on-one LP-GP meetings instead of open networking, has run in Miami, New York, and Singapore. In April 2027 it comes to Europe for the first time, at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, giving European allocators and the managers raising into Europe a home-market edition of the highest-density meeting format in the industry.

What is Global Alts Europe 2027?

Global Alts Europe is iConnections’ European flagship capital introduction event, bringing together institutional allocators and fund managers for two days of exclusive one-on-one meetings, curated panels, and discussions led by industry thought leaders.

The 2027 edition runs April 28 to 29 at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. It joins the Global Alts series alongside Miami, New York, and Asia, completing the series’ coverage of the three major allocators regions.

Who will be in the room?

The allocator side is expected to draw 400+ institutional allocators, led by family offices: single family offices at 29%, multi-family offices at 15%, then funds of funds at 13%, asset managers and investment firms at 12%, wealth managers and RIAs at 8%, endowments and foundations at 7%, pension funds at 5%, and investment consultants, banks, insurers, and sovereign wealth funds making up the rest. By seniority, 36% are C-suite and founders.

The manager side runs to 300+ fund managers across every alternative strategy, led by hedge funds at 43% and private credit at 15%, with venture capital, private equity, long-only, multi-strategy, real estate, digital assets, real assets, and specialty finance behind them. By firm size the room spans the full range: 19% run under $100M and 27% run above $3B. More than 50 speakers, including pension CIOs, endowment heads, and industry leaders, lead the content program.

How do the meetings work?

Every meeting is pre-scheduled through Violet, the iConnections platform before attendees arrive. You choose who you see based on strategy, track record, and fit, so the two days in Paris are spent in qualified conversations rather than hallway networking.

Two numbers define the format. More than 4,000 one-on-one meetings run across the two days, and nearly half are allocator-initiated: LPs drive the agenda, choose their meetings, and control their time. That is why 85% of allocators return to Global Alts events year after year.

What does it cost to attend?

Allocators: registration is complimentary for qualified institutional allocators who commit to taking 12 onsite meetings.

Fund managers: AUM-based pricing, and attendees must be iConnections members, which extends the relationships year-round on the platform after Paris ends. Whether a $50B platform or a $200M emerging manager, every firm gets access to the same allocators.

Service providers: participation is through tiered sponsorship packages, from Premier to Bronze, with speaking and content sponsorships and lead generation tracked through the platform.

Why a European edition, and why now?

Because the European allocator market has been the missing third of the map. European pensions, insurers, family offices, and sovereign funds are among the most active allocators to alternatives globally, but the concentrated, pre-scheduled meeting format has historically required flying to the US or Asia. A Paris flagship puts two days of qualified LP-GP meetings within a short train or flight for the entire European allocator base, and gives managers raising into Europe a single venue to build that pipeline.

Frequently asked questions

When and where is Global Alts Europe 2027?
April 28 to 29, 2027, at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris.

How many meetings happen at Global Alts Europe?
More than 4,000 pre-scheduled, pre-vetted one-on-one meetings across two days. Nearly half are allocator-initiated.

Is Global Alts Europe free for allocators?
Yes. Registration is complimentary for qualified institutional allocators who commit to taking 12 onsite meetings.

Who attends Global Alts Europe?
400+ institutional allocators (led by family offices at 44% combined), 300+ fund managers across every alternative strategy, and service providers, with 50+ speakers leading the content program.

What are the best alternative investment conferences in Europe in 2027?
For LP-GP meeting density, Global Alts Europe (Paris, April 28-29, 2027) is built specifically for it: 4,000+ pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings in two days, with no other Europe event delivering that density of meaningful LP-GP interaction.

The bottom line

If you allocate capital in Europe, Global Alts Europe is two days of pre-scheduled meetings with managers you have already vetted for fit. If you are raising, it is the densest concentration of qualified European allocators anywhere in 2027, and the relationships continue on the platform year-round after Paris. Registration is open: allocators attend complimentary with a 12-meeting commitment, and managers attend through iConnections membership.

Private credit outlook 2026, in short: demand is holding, but the bar has moved. About 40% of allocators on the iConnections platform indicate interest in private credit and only 18% rule it out. Nearly two-thirds of LPs surveyed in June 2026 are maintaining or growing their exposure, and private credit ranked among the top three strategies by meeting share at both Global Alts Miami and Global Alts New York. Allocators are not leaving the asset class. They are raising the standard for who earns the mandate.

Private credit heads toward 2027 as an established pillar of institutional portfolios, now estimated at more than $2 trillion in global AUM. That scale has brought a new kind of scrutiny. Rising rates, renewed inflation pressure, and a run of high-profile bankruptcies have put the asset class through its first real cycle test since its post-2008 ascent.

Headlines have read that as the beginning of a retreat. The iConnections Private Credit Report 2026: Scale Meets Scrutiny measures it two ways: what LPs say they want, and what they actually do when the meeting schedule opens.

<!– iConnections | Private Credit Report 2026 | Block 1 of 4: top CTA. Paste after the intro paragraphs. Self-contained: no tag, no external CSS. –>

Private credit outlook 2026 in four numbers

<!– iConnections | Private Credit Report 2026 | Block 2 of 4: four stat cards. Paste under the H2 "Private credit outlook 2026 in four numbers". Self-contained: no tag, no external CSS. –>

• 40% of LPs on the iConnections platform indicate interest in private credit, fifth among 21 strategies.
• +22 net interest. Only 18% of allocators rule the strategy out.
• Top 3 by share of meetings at both Global Alts Miami and Global Alts New York 2026.
• 13% of allocators surveyed in June 2026 are actively reducing exposure.

How strong is LP demand for private credit in 2026?

Stated interest remains broad. About 40% of LPs on the iConnections platform select private credit as a strategy of interest, placing it in the top five of 21 strategies.

<!– iConnections | Private Credit Report 2026 | Block 3 of 4: LP interest chart. Paste inside "How strong is LP demand for private credit in 2026?", after the first paragraph. Self-contained: no tag, no external CSS. Bars are decorative; every value is real text, so search engines and AI assistants read the data. –>

Top five strategies by stated LP interest, iConnections platform

Private equity49%

Long/short equity48%

Multi-strategy46%

Global macro41%

Private credit40%

Netting interest against the 18% who rule it out leaves a delta of +22, still in the top seven strategies by net demand. Private credit has broad permission from allocators, but it is more contested than the strategies ranked above it.

Is LP demand for private credit falling?

It is moderating, not cratering. In an iConnections survey of more than 100 global investors in June 2026, only 13% of allocators said they are actively reducing exposure and about 22% are slowing deployment. Nearly two-thirds are maintaining or growing their allocation, albeit more selectively.

The February survey of more than 500 LPs told a more cautious story. How sentiment moved between the two reads is one of the more useful comparisons in the report.

Where is demand actually converting?

Meeting behavior is a stronger signal than stated interest, because it reflects the allocations likely to be made in the next 12 to 18 months. Private credit ranked among the top three strategies by share of meetings at both Global Alts Miami and Global Alts New York in 2026.

That demand is concentrated. At Global Alts New York, insurance companies and banks devoted 22% and 21% of their meetings to private credit, well ahead of every other allocator type. At the other end of the spectrum, some of the most established institutional allocators are doing almost no active diligence on the space. The report shows which ones, and how all 13 LP types compare.

What has changed in the room

The questions allocators ask have shifted, and so has the regulatory backdrop. The report maps the diligence points now deciding mandates, where private credit is still expanding despite the cautious tone, and how its role in financing AI infrastructure has grown into one of the largest corners of the market.

“Private credit is no longer being asked to prove it can grow. It is being asked to prove it can hold up”.

It also includes a feature by Zach Lewy, Founder, CEO and CIO of Arrow Global, on why Europe’s next phase in private credit will reward operators over remote capital.

Frequently asked questions

What is the private credit outlook for 2026?

Demand is holding but more selective: about 40% of LPs on the iConnections platform indicate interest in private credit, and only 18% rule it out.

Is LP demand for private credit declining?

It is moderating. Only 13% of allocators surveyed in June 2026 are actively reducing exposure, while nearly two-thirds are maintaining or growing it.

Which allocators are most active in private credit?

Insurance companies and banks, which devoted 22% and 21% of their meetings at Global Alts New York 2026 to private credit.

The bottom line

Private credit is maturing in public view rather than unraveling. Interest is broad, meetings are steady, and the institutions with the deepest yield needs are leaning in. The next phase will be defined by which managers can show their underwriting holds up, and the full report shows where allocators are looking for that proof.

<!– iConnections | Private Credit Report 2026 | Block 4 of 4: closing CTA. Paste at the very end, after "The bottom line". Self-contained: no tag, no external CSS. –>

The first wave of AI in alternatives was a smarter search bar: ask a question, get an answer. The agentic wave is different in kind, not degree. An agentic AI is connected to the tools and data where work happens, takes actions on your behalf, and tracks context over time. In capital introduction, that shift changes what a platform is: from a place you search to a system that works the network with you. Violet, iConnections’ agentic AI, is the first built specifically for this industry, and what it does day to day is the clearest illustration of where the category is going.

Every few years the industry’s tooling makes a jump that changes behavior rather than speed. Email replaced fax. Databases replaced Rolodexes. Platforms replaced static lists. The current jump is from AI that answers to AI that acts, and capital introduction is one of the first corners of finance where that shift is live in production rather than in a demo.

What is agentic AI, and how is it different from a chatbot?

The distinction matters because the label “AI” now covers both.

A chatbot answers questions inside a box. You bring it context, it returns text, and the work of doing anything with that text is yours. Agentic AI connects to the systems where the work actually lives, takes actions on your behalf, and remembers what matters between sessions. The test is simple: after the conversation ends, did anything in the world change?

On iConnections, that test looks like this: “Violet, send a follow-up email to everyone I met with last week at Global Alts Miami.” Or: “Build me a one-page briefing on the GPs presenting at Stage A tomorrow.” Or: “Remind me to check in next month with the family offices I met at Coffee & Connections.” Drafts get written, reminders get set, briefings get assembled from iConnections live platform data. Available around the clock and never forgets a thing.

Why does capital introduction benefit first?

Because capital introduction is a data-and-follow-up problem wearing a relationship costume.

The relationship is the point, but everything around it is information work: knowing which allocators are searching for your strategy, whose profile you viewed, which deck got downloaded, which follow-up is overdue, which mandate just opened. That surrounding layer is exactly what agentic systems are good at: watching, connecting, summarizing, and acting across large, fast-moving surfaces that no human can monitor continuously.

The scale of the underlying network is what makes an agent useful rather than decorative. Violet works across everything a member can access on iConnections: events, meetings, the fund universe, the allocator base, companies and people, research and session replays, chats and communities, and the member’s own uploaded documents, all within their permission scope. The network itself runs at more than 100,000 AI searches every 90 days, 70,000 of them initiated by allocators.

What does an agentic workflow look like in practice?

A few examples of how the model changes daily fundraising and allocation work.

Before an event: instead of scanning a delegate list, a manager asks for a briefing on the allocators they are meeting, assembled from iConnections platform data and their own materials, and drafts of intro emails referencing each allocator’s latest activity.

After an event: instead of a spreadsheet and good intentions, follow-ups are drafted, sent, and tracked, and reminders are set for the check-ins that should happen next month, so nothing falls through the cracks between events.

Between events: the agent watches the network proactively. New mandates, new fundraises, new manager launches in a strategy you cover, surfaced as they happen rather than discovered at the next conference.

The common thread is that the agent is not a separate destination. It sits inside the network and acts on live, first-party data, which is what separates it from a general-purpose model with a finance vocabulary.

What does this change for LPs and GPs?

For managers, the shift moves fundraising from episodic campaigns to a continuously worked pipeline: the agent keeps profiles current, flags allocator interest the moment it appears, and keeps follow-up cadence alive between events.

For allocators, it compresses the discovery and monitoring workload: plain-language search across the fund universe, briefings before meetings, and proactive surfacing when the market moves in a strategy they cover.

For the industry, the bigger change is compounding. When the agent’s memory and the network’s data grow together, every meeting, document, and search makes the next match better. That is the agentic shift in one sentence: the platform stops being a venue and starts being a participant.

Frequently asked questions

What is agentic AI in finance?
Agentic AI is AI connected to the tools and data where work happens, able to take actions on a user’s behalf (drafting and sending emails, setting reminders, building briefings, watching for changes) rather than only answering questions. In capital introduction, Violet by iConnections is the first agentic AI built specifically for alternative investments.

How is agentic AI different from a chatbot?
A chatbot answers questions inside a box. An agentic system connects to live systems, acts on the user’s behalf, and maintains context over time. The test: after the conversation ends, something in the world has changed.

How is AI used in capital introduction?
AI matching on behavioral signals and mandate data, plain-language search across funds and allocators, pre-meeting briefings, automated follow-up and reminders, and proactive surfacing of new mandates and fundraises across a live LP-GP network.

What is Violet by iConnections?
Violet is iConnections’ agentic AI, built on the iConnections network. It works across events, meetings, funds, allocators, content, communities, and a member’s own documents, answering in real time and taking action within the member’s permission scope.

The bottom line

The agentic shift is not about better answers. It is about a system that watches the network, remembers what matters, and acts on it, so the humans on both sides can spend their time on the conversations that actually move capital. That is what we built Violet to do, and it is where the industry is heading.

Family offices are the largest allocator audience in alternatives, and the least visible one. They discover managers through networks, platforms, and referrals rather than public processes, and they vet with an endowment-trained lens: team quality first, structure and tax efficiency close behind, and a deep skepticism of anything that looks expensive, illiquid, and undifferentiated. Here is how the discovery and vetting actually work, in the words of the family office CIOs themselves.

Family offices now sit at the center of the alternatives market. On iConnections, they are the largest single share of the allocator audience: at Global Alts Europe, single family offices alone are 29% of expected allocators, and multi-family offices another 15%. Yet for most fund managers, the family office channel remains the hardest to read: no RFPs, no public mandates, and a decision process that happens almost entirely behind closed doors.

How do family offices discover new managers?

Family offices do not discover managers through databases alone. The channel mix is networks, referrals from other LPs and GPs, platforms where they can search on their own terms, and events where they control the agenda.

The discovery behavior is active, not passive. On iConnections, family offices are the largest share of the allocator base running searches and viewing fund profiles: part of the roughly 70,000 allocator-initiated searches on the platform every 90 days and more than 250,000 LP-to-GP profile clicks a year. Nearly half of live event meetings are allocator-initiated, which means family offices are frequently the ones requesting the meeting.

The practical implication for managers: family offices cannot call what they cannot find. A complete, specific, current fund profile is the entry ticket to a channel that runs on quiet, self-directed research.

What do family offices look for first?

Team quality, before everything else. Michel Del Buono, CIO of a16z Perennial, the family office Andreessen Horowitz built for its founders, put it in one sentence on stage at Global Alts New York 2026: “The only thing worse than 2 and 20 is 100 and zero.” His warning to family offices chasing direct deals to save on fees: look at the quality of the team first, because saving a few thousand dollars to get a worse investment is not a good trade.

After team, structure. Del Buono’s first-principles build at Perennial was explicitly endowment-style: bring the best practices of institutional asset management, from how the portfolio is structured to fee and tax efficiency, and minimize the headwinds of the traditional fund-of-funds approach. For taxable family office capital, he argues structure is alpha: capturing even half of the 500 to 600 basis point gross-to-net spread in a strategy like real estate can move a portfolio up a full quartile without needing to out-pick the market.

How deep does the vetting go?

Deeper than most managers expect, and on different dimensions than institutional RFPs.

Del Buono’s vetting lens runs through tax and structure first. His example: the same 16% headline return can net 16% in tax-aware real estate or 4% in private credit for a taxable investor, and almost nobody reports post-tax returns, which is why he argues tax-aware exposure should be the real benchmark for family capital. Tax-aware strategies, he noted, grew from roughly $10B to $150B in 24 months, a repeatable structural edge that requires no manager-picking skill at all.

On directs and co-invests, the vetting is structural too: he warns against shells of shells (L1, L2, L3 structures where you cannot tell who controls the entity or how distributions flow) and his advice to family offices is blunt: unless you know exactly who controls the vehicle, leave it to professionals.

And on portfolio construction, the one rule he says every veteran venture LP agrees on: vintage diversification. Returns concentrate in a few 10 to 15x vintages, and timing them is basically impossible.

How big does a family office have to be to run this playbook?

Del Buono puts a number on it: the Goldilocks zone for a multi-asset single family office is roughly $20 to $30B in AUM. Below $1 to $2B, he argues, a diversified single family office is hard to run properly, and the model shifts toward multi-family offices or outsourced structures.

For managers, that sizing reality explains the channel’s shape: thousands of family offices, a wide dispersion in sophistication, and a small number with true institutional infrastructure. The ones in between are exactly the allocators who rely most on platforms and trusted referrals to do their discovery.

What should managers do differently for family offices?

Four adjustments follow from how family offices actually vet.

Lead with the team, not the fee story. The CIO lens is quality first; a cheap version of a weak team loses to a fairly priced strong one.

Show the structure, not just the returns. Family offices managing taxable capital evaluate gross-to-net drag, so managers who can speak to tax and structural efficiency sound different from those who cannot.

Be findable where they search. The largest allocator audience in alternatives does its discovery quietly, on platforms and through networks, not through public processes.

And respect the relationship horizon. Family offices are not quarter-to-quarter capital; the same CIOs who vet hard also stick through drawdowns when the fit is real.

Frequently asked questions

How do family offices find fund managers?
Through networks, referrals, and platforms where they can search on their own terms. Family offices are the largest allocator audience on iConnections (29% single family offices and 15% multi-family offices at Global Alts Europe), where allocators run roughly 70,000 searches for managers every 90 days.

What do family offices look for in a fund manager?
Team quality first, then structure. Michel Del Buono, CIO of a16z Perennial, puts it as: the only thing worse than 2 and 20 is 100 and zero. For taxable capital, post-tax, post-fee outcomes and structural efficiency matter as much as headline returns.

How do family offices vet managers differently from institutions?
They apply endowment-style diligence (team, structure, vintage diversification) with an added tax and structure lens, and deep structural scrutiny of directs and co-invests, including who actually controls the vehicle and how distributions flow.

Are family offices active allocators to emerging managers?
Yes. Family offices are the largest share of the allocator base on iConnections, and nearly half of live event meetings on the platform are allocator-initiated.

The bottom line

Family offices are the biggest, quietest allocator audience in alternatives. They discover through networks and platforms, vet like endowments with a taxable-capital lens, and reward managers who lead with team quality and structural honesty. The channel is not mysterious; it is just self-directed, which means the managers who get found are the ones who made themselves findable.