Private markets are still the last paper-based market. You can’t press a button to buy or sell, and much of the work between investor and fund still runs on documents, email, and manual review.
Our founder and CEO, Rafay Farooqui, joined Nuveen’s Randy Schwimmer on The Private Capital Call to talk about what it will take to change that. They covered how the industry is evolving, where tokenization fits, what AI is already changing, and the lessons Rafay has learned building two companies in this space.
Resistance Is a Signal
When everyone says a problem can’t be solved, that’s often the sign you’re early. The right response is to move faster, not slower.
The Pipes Come Before Scale
Private markets are moving through three phases: democratization, fixing the pipes, and the flywheel of scale. Wider access exposed plumbing that was never built for volume, so the work now is infrastructure. That means one enterprise platform across pre-trade, trade, and post-trade, open through APIs, rather than a patchwork of point solutions. It’s the problem SUBSCRIBE is built to solve.
Faster Markets, Same Fundamentals
Tokenization could take settlement from weeks to seconds and open access to investors who couldn’t participate before. AI will reshape jobs more than eliminate them, and skilled people will still need to direct the work.
What Lasts in Company Building
Relationships and reputation compound over a career. Keep one foot on the gas and one on the brake in every market. Build quietly, listen to clients, and outwork everyone.
Thank you to Randy and Nuveen for a great conversation.
ABOUT SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE is a fintech company digitally transforming the landscape of alternative investments for fund managers, institutional investors, wealth managers, law firms, and fund administrators. Our platform technology modernizes the archaic infrastructure of private fund investments by delivering a central operating system — catering to every role within the investment process empowering them to connect any fund, any investor, anywhere in the world on a single platform.
