How A FinTech Disruptor Turned Data Matchmaking Into A Million-Dollar Game
InstiHub: Data-Driven Insights for Fund-of-Funds Partnerships
When you think of investing money, it’s hard to believe that even well-established asset management firms need expert advice. Asset managers like mutual funds are responsible for growing their clients’ wealth through skilled investing. InstiHub provides a reliable and speedy solution for your FinTech issues.
Despite recent market volatility, clients are flocking to asset management services. The number of clients using investment advisors ballooned to 54.2 million in 2022 and continues to grow. Likewise, investor satisfaction rates are at an all-time high of 81%. The partnership between asset managers and sub-advisors is the main factor driving such high satisfaction rates.
Asset managers allocate client investments in different industries. However, no single firm can have deep expertise across all asset classes and markets. They outsource this by hiring sub-advisory partners with specialized investment expertise in specific asset classes and markets. Sub-advisors manage a portion of an asset manager’s portfolio to ensure they make informed investments, thereby creating a profitable ecosystem. However, finding the ideal sub-advisor match and structuring fair compensation is almost as tricky as predicting the market. That’s where InstiHub, a London-based matchmaker, comes in.
As the pioneering platform in this field, InstiHub empowers asset managers by providing detailed profiles on thousands of global sub-advisory firms. Packed with extensive performance data, investment strategies, and areas of expertise, these profiles give asset managers vital information to make educated decisions. With InstiHub, they can quickly identify and evaluate potential best-fit partners for their needs, putting them in control of their investment strategies.
Once asset managers find potential partners, InstiHub’s data-driven pricing tools come into play, ensuring a fair and transparent pricing process. These tools calculate a sub-advisor’s fee based on their historical returns, asset class and investment style as well as current market rates. This innovative service quickly gained traction in the market. InstiHub revolutionized how asset managers facilitated partnerships, providing a sense of security and satisfaction to both parties.
The company provided significant value to both parties by streamlining the sub-advisory partnership process. Its pragmatic pricing helped build trust and longstanding relationships between partners. It also helped ensure fair trading while mitigating financial risk.
InstiHub’s success was primarily driven by its robust data management capabilities. Before it overtook the market, the company started strong with a bold solution to a significant industry issue. As their clientele grew, so did their data–and so did their data management challenges. However, InstiHub’s commitment to data management ensured that, despite the growing volume of data, it continued to facilitate quicker partnerships between asset managers and sub-advisors, without compromising on the time saved.
The Problem: InstiHub’s Data Gets Caught in Hedge Fund Maze
InstiHub revolutionized asset management by enhancing sub-advisory and fund-of-funds partnerships. As the company grew rapidly, it faced significant data challenges that inspired the search for specialized solutions. Its primary offerings—sub-advisor scouting and compensation analytics—required the quick and accurate aggregation of data from various sources.
InstiHub collected detailed profiles on thousands of sub-advisory firms, along with comprehensive market data, to enable effective benchmarking and performance comparisons. However, as their data became scattered, inconsistencies and errors emerged, which threatening service integrity and customers’ trust.
Despite these setbacks, InstiHub remained committed to accuracy and fairness. The company depended on its data-driven pricing tool to help asset managers and provide fair remuneration. However, the company struggled to transform raw and fragmented data into actionable insights. They also lacked the necessary tools and expertise.
To address these challenges, InstiHub partnered with Data-Sleek, a data management expert. The company recognized the need for guidance in managing its data effectively while continuing to match asset managers with the right market experts.
The Solution: Turning InstiHub’s Portfolio Puzzle to A Clear Picture
As key players in asset management, InstiHub addressed a critical industry problem with an innovative solution, but faced internal challenges due to large data volumes and poor data quality. The company met with Data-Sleek’s expert advisory services to overhaul their data architecture within a single month. Data-Sleek’s team exceeded expectations, delivering a comprehensive data management solution.
The Need for Speed
InstiHub’s data-driven pricing tool was central to its offering but struggled with slow query times. Retrieving and processing data often took several minutes, resulting in a frustrating user experience and a potential loss of customers.
Data-Sleek’s approach to this challenge leveraged a combination of caching mechanisms, dynamic SQL, and advanced data modeling techniques. First, they implemented a caching mechanism that stored the results of frequently executed queries. This reduced the need for repeated data retrieval and processing. It also ensured that subsequent requests for the same data could be served almost instantly, providing users with a lightning-fast experience.
Next, Data-Sleek’s team utilized dynamic SQL in stored procedures to generate queries on the fly. Queries were then cached in a MySQL database that ensured even the most complex and customized requests were executed quickly and without costly database operations.
An Investment in Efficiency
Caching alone was not enough to address performance bottlenecks. Data-Sleek’s team needed to remodel InstiHub’s complex data structure to address the core of its data issues.|
Data-Sleek audited and analyzed the existing system. They identified key areas of inefficiency and redundancy and subsequently restructured the data models to eliminate these bottlenecks. This process involved denormalizing data, creating specialized indexes, optimizing join operations, and maintaining data integrity and consistency.
Beating the Deadline
With a tight one-month deadline, Data-Sleek’s team demonstrated unwavering dedication, working tirelessly to implement these changes. The team conducted rigorous testing and performance benchmarking to ensure the solution met InstiHub’s requirements within the deadline.
Ultimately, their efforts paid off. The new system delivered data in under two seconds, while also driving a remarkable transformation in the platform’s overall performance. InstiHub’s performance metamorphosed into a seamless, responsive platform that provided an excellent user experience for its users when contacting Data-Sleek, but the solution far exceeded their wildest imaginations.
The Results: InstiHub Goes Beyond Benchmarking
Data-Sleek’s team showed unwavering dedication on a limited deadline, working tirelessly to implement much needed changes, and conducting rigorous testing and performance benchmarking. This effort guaranteed the proposed solution met InstiHub’s strict requirements, delivered data in under two seconds, and also drove a remarkable transformation in the platform’s overall performance. Data Sleek’s solution far exceeded InstiHub’s expectations – their performance metamorphosed into a seamless, responsive platform that provided an excellent user experience for its users.
Its growth did not go unnoticed. Making a splash in the market garnered the attention of Wealth Tech giant Allfunds. Recognizing the immense value and potential of InstiHub, Allfunds acquired InstiHub for an undisclosed amount. This acquisition helped build one of the most powerful leaders in the WealthTech industry.
“I am very pleased that we have entered this agreement that will bring great talent and new insight to Allfunds,” states Juan Alcaraz, Allfunds’ founder and CEO. “This transaction brings exciting possibilities for our data & analytics capacities and will contribute to our ambition to keep leading in the WealthTech space by providing cutting-edge and comprehensive solutions for our clients. Our shared client-centric approach and integrated offering will surely help grow our existing customer base and deliver superior added value to our existing clients.”
For InstiHub, the partnership is a dream come true. “I am delighted to have InstiHub and my fantastic team join Allfunds,” states Andreas Pfunder, CEO and Founder of InstiHub. “Our combined vision and drive for delivering unique, fully actionable, and highly value-added business optimization data analytics to asset managers and distributors worldwide are fully aligned. This joint strength and commitment does not make me doubt that we will fulfill our dream and be the market-leading business knowledge technology partner for the industry.”
The collaboration between InstiHub and Data-Sleek demonstrates the power of data-driven solutions and their profound impact on an industry-wide scale. By harnessing the full potential of its data assets and optimizing its platform, InstiHub redefined the landscape of asset management and maximized its returns on innovation.
For InstiHub, partnering with Data-Sleek unlocked lasting business value. Explore how Data-Sleek can transform your data strategy today.
Learn more about InstiHub (now known as Allfunds)
Data-Sleek® is a consulting agency and a leading provider of comprehensive data management solutions. We specialize in data transformation, data migration, data integration, data architecture, data warehousing, and database consulting. Our commitment to client satisfaction empowers organizations of all sizes to unlock the full potential of their data assets. Data-Sleek is a trusted partner of Fortune 500 companies, dedicated to innovating and revolutionizing the way you do business.