Aqua, a New York–based alternatives infrastructure company, announced on Sept. 9 that it has secured $18.8 million in total funding and launched what it describes as the industry’s first turnkey alternative investments platform (TAIP).
Aqua funding, investors and plans
The capital came in two tranches: an initial $3.8 million seed round that included support from Google’s AI Fund, accelerator Y Combinator and other investors, followed by a $15 million Series A led by Arthur Ventures with participation from Alumni Ventures. Aqua said the new funding will accelerate business and platform development, expand its engineering and partnership teams, and support broader integrations with custodians and fund sponsors.
Platform purpose and target customers
The TAIP is aimed at wealth managers, registered investment advisers, banks, trust companies and fund sponsors that want to build, oversee and scale alternatives programs without stitching together multiple systems. Aqua positions the product as a replacement for the spreadsheets, manual workflows and fragmented point solutions that many advisory firms still rely on to manage alternative investments.
The company said the platform consolidates fund creation, operational processes, investment lifecycle oversight, marketplace connectivity, document intelligence and investor servicing into a single system, allowing firms to shape their own alternatives approach and expand it at their own pace.
