Lanturn’s original goal, when the company was founded in 2017, was to build technology to simplify the processes surrounding corporate services. Expanding upon this offering, last year, Lanturn introduced LFS — a fund administration and regulatory services platform that is designed to make life easier than ever for fund managers to start and manage funds, and for payment providers and other regulated entities to meet their statutory requirements.
Using this cutting-edge platform to deliver a smooth and consistent level of service, Lanturn’s team of experienced fund administrators and fund accountants can streamline the entire process of establishing and managing a fund — whether they be crypto funds, hedge funds, private equity, real estate, venture debt, private credit, family offices or venture capital firms.
“Lanturn’s digital approach to funding admin has allowed us to fully integrate with our other operations, allowing us to spend more time on fundraising and deal-making,” said Martin Tang, co-founder and CFO of Genesis Alternative Ventures, Southeast Asia’s largest independent venture debt fund. “The litmus test of a well-run fund lies in how well its backroom operations function. As a result, a responsive, reliable and technically sound fund admin is essential.”
Lanturn’s array of fund services includes MAS license applications, structuring and fundraising support (including KYC/AML, investor onboarding, investment execution and document management; all handled digitally), capital calls, portfolio tracking, investor relations and regulatory filings. Lanturn’s platform allows payment services providers and other regulated entities to more efficiently manage their own statutory compliance, accounting, tax and other back-office functions.
“Fund services providers are key to the proper function of any fund manager. As such, we were a bit nervous when we switched to Lanturn as our new fund services provider,” said Thierry de Panafieu, co-founder and managing partner of Hera Capital, a Singapore-based private equity fund that invests across Southeast Asia, and that is currently raising its 8th fund. “Our experience has been completely satisfactory: the expertise, responsiveness and professionalism of the Lanturn team have made the process seamless.”
Lanturn’s LFS fund services platform helps streamline and automate many processes that were previously handled in a paper-based manner. This was time-consuming and created challenges in generating and sharing reports with investors, auditors and regulators. By utilising tech to digitise the various processes involved in establishing an investment fund, raising funds and fund management, and by simplifying access to data, Lanturn liberates fund managers from burdensome admin, allowing them to concentrate upon creating returns.
“Having worked with multiple fund and corporate services firms over the past 15 years, I was always amazed at how poor their systems were,” said Velisarios Kattoulas, CEO of Lanturn. “The experience for me as a client was frequently terrible because of the lack of investment in technology. With our fund services platform, and our corporate services platform before that, we want to provide great service and a great experience that’s driven by cutting-edge technology.”
Though it only soft-launched its LFS arm in August 2020, Lanturn now has 50 fund services clients, jointly boasting in excess of US$1 billion in AUM. Dedicated to making it easier and more cost-effective to establish companies and funds, for now, Lanturn’s focus is Singapore. While its platforms are jurisdiction agnostic and it plans to expand into new markets, the intention is to stick to the Asia Pacific in 2022. Mainly serving funds in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, Lanturn sees great potential for its services in this region.
Recent forecasts back this belief. Knight Frank’s latest Wealth Report predicts that Asia Pacific’s population of ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) will grow by 33% from 2020 to 2025 (outpacing the global average of 27%), with 168,567 UHNWIs expected by 2025. The Asia Pacific is already home to more billionaires than any other region, with 36% of the global total. As these numbers grow, so too will demand entity and fund creation and management — a process Lanturn is making much easier.
