About Alchelyst

Alchelyst is a next-generation full-service fund administrator focusing on alternative assets. The firm has adopted a technology-first approach to effectively service modern fund managers who have more complex workflows and demand a higher level of data transparency than their legacy counterparts. In addition to building a proprietary solution, Alchelyst has also partnered with leading technology providers to service its GP clients effectively no matter the complexity or urgency.

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Challenge

Private markets have grown significantly in the past decade, both in size and complexity. While the growth in the number of funds and total AUM helped fund administrators win more clients and generate more revenue, the increasing complexity of fund operations brought many challenges. Fund administrators didn’t have the flexible infrastructure set up to efficiently service each client’s bespoke needs as fund complexity and variety increased. Rising workload coupled with a lack of investment in infrastructure led to employee dissatisfaction and record staff turnover, further damaging the client experience for investors.  

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In an industry built on legacy technology that’s unable to meet the demand for more frequent and transparent data, Alchelyst set out to build a fund administration business that leverages the latest technologies to effectively service clients no matter the complexity, and provide transparent, real-time data.

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"Lots of businesses have been using the same technologies for many years and now they're trying to re-engineer those technologies to fit the modern use of data. So we had an opportunity here to establish a business using 2024 technologies, which we then wrapped with a really strong service team and culture." - Joan Kehoe, CEO at Alchelyst

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Solution

Alchelyst solved the challenges of legacy fund administration from the very start. The firm focused on two areas: people and technology.

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On the technology front, Alchelyst embarked on a comprehensive evaluation process, reviewing dozens of providers to build a best-in-class tech stack that avoided the limitations of legacy technologies used by other fund administrators. The key for Alchelyst’s search was to find robust yet flexible software that could be configured for each client’s bespoke needs across multiple asset classes. LemonEdge quickly became the obvious choice for Alchelyst and a very fruitful partnership began.

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"We have watched the requirements for managers evolve and we were really keen to find technology partners that would grow with us, that would evolve with us, that had an appetite to evolve with us and that was really the big differentiator with LemonEdge." - Joan Kehoe, CEO at Alchelyst

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Benefits

The result of leveraging LemonEdge has been transformational for Alchelyst, avoiding challenges faced by legacy fund administrators and providing clients with bespoke, timely, and scalable services.

Servicing uniquely structured, highly complex funds

The biggest benefit of using LemonEdge for Alchelyst has been its ability to effectively service firms with multiple funds in different asset classes on a central system, regardless of the funds’ unique requirements. Having a single, flexible system which supports closed-ended entities as well as hybrid open-ended entities (including those with hedge-style characteristics) meant that Alchelyst didn’t need offline Excel workarounds or had to try and bend other systems to meet client needs.

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"Recently we've been working with a client on some very complex requirements. I don't think we would have got that anywhere else, to be able to build something that was bespoke and did exactly what we wanted to do... With LemonEdge, we really were able to deliver something to the client they hadn't seen before." - Ian Lynch, CCO at Alchelyst

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Offering a smooth and quick implementation experience

Implementation has historically been a huge headache for fund administrators and clients alike. Through LemonEdge, Alchelyst has been able to get its clients up and running much quicker compared to other administrators, without sacrificing any customization needs or historical data ingestion.  

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LemonEdge’s extensive customization capabilities, coupled with its ability to import code and Excel files gave Alchelyst all the tools it needed to efficiently set up any bespoke workflow and populate historical data.  

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This has not only helped Alchelyst make a great first impression on its clients and build the foundations of long-lasting partnerships, but also increased interest from other fund managers who heard of Alchelyst’s exceptional service from existing clients.

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"I genuinely believe that there are very few technologies in the market that would have allowed us to build, test and implement that solution within the time frame that we did with LemonEdge. It was a six to eight week testing process which is really, really fast compared to the project’s complexity." - Joan Kehoe, CEO at Alchelyst

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Scaling alongside clients as requirements evolve

Alchelyst was founded to solve the challenges legacy fund administrators faced due to alternatives’ growth in size and complexity, so it was very important that the firm could evolve its offering as its clients grew their operations and adopted new security and compliance measures.

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LemonEdge’s flexible infrastructure and robust security measures allowed the Alchelyst team to confidently offer its clients fully secure, compliant, accurate reporting in multiple jurisdictions and asset classes, backed by comprehensive, time-stamped audit trails.  

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As fund managers expanded their operations and partnership with Alchelyst, they were able to leverage a suite of solutions including white-labelled investor portals, KYC/AML checks, reporting engines, regulatory portals, and much more— all through a single source of truth.

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Finally, if any fund managers wanted to build connections to their own data warehouses or third-party accounting solutions to run a shadow process, they always had the ability to do so via LemonEdge's API, ensuring that Alchelyst clients could always access and control their data.

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"I think that's a real sign of things to come with Lemon Edge, that we can collaborate together, we can do things that other systems and platforms can't do and offer clients flexibility to deal with, quite frankly, the growth and the complexity that they're dealing with as this industry expands." - Ian Lynch, CCO at Alchelyst

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LemonEdge’s unique fit for fund administrators

As seen with the example of Alchelyst, fund administrators need to account for complexities across multiple asset classes and jurisdictions, as well as individual fund requirements. LemonEdge’s ability to manage closed-ended and hybrid open-ended entities, as well as multiple GL types including parallel GLs (e.g. IFRS with local GAAP) ensures that fund administrators can support their clients’ global and local accounting needs as well as financial statement production across multiple onshore and offshore jurisdictions.

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It’s common to see offline Excel workarounds to solve the breadth of subtle variations required by each client, which increases the likelihood of issues surrounding data security, auditing ability, and key-person risk. With LemonEdge, service providers can automate all calculations while keeping the data fully in the system. Not only does this improve operational excellence for administrators, but also results in a better, more trustworthy service for clients.

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The LemonEdge system has specifically been designed to address these challenges and future-proof fund administrators as their clients grow and evolve.

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