RELEASED JULY 2024

Emerging managers face numerous unique obstacles to successful fundraising. Data-driven resourcing and outreach can help managers allocate their limited time and capital more effectively and find the opportunities which best fit their strategy. Nasdaq eVestment, as a key source of intelligence serving asset managers, investors, and consultants, allows emerging managers to dissect trends and surface opportunities relevant to them.

Asset managers report $61.6 trillion in total assets covering over 27,000 unique products to the Nasdaq eVestment platform. The data provided by managers are screened over 40,000 times and their profiles reviewed more than 125,000 times by investors and consultants each quarter. A significant proportion of clients’ screens and profile reviews are directed toward emerging managers.

Highlights:

• Public plan commitments to emerging managers and managers-of-emerging managers totaled $691 million in Q1 2024, rebounding from muted activity throughout 2023.
• Commitments during Q1 were predominantly in private real estate funds. Public plans’ emerging manager commitments continue to favor private over public markets vehicles. Private markets commitments averaged $378 million per quarter over the past 2 years versus $132 million for public markets strategies.
• Allocators and consultants continue to key in on $2 billion firm AUM and majority employee ownership when screening for emerging managers on the Nasdaq eVestment platform. We investigate other quantitative data points that are being used when screening for managers to illuminate database population strategy.
• Allocators and consultants in the U.S. were the most active in the emerging manager space from a geographic perspective in Q1. By institution type, we find managers-of-managers, foundations, and endowments conducted the most due diligence on emerging relative to established managers.
• We investigate the claim that due diligence, particularly in the emerging manager segment, is undertaken to some degree to “check a box” with no real intent to invest. Emerging manager research as measured by allocator- and consultant-led activity on our platform suggests this is not a sizeable effect relative to overall interest in the space.