Edward Jones plans to provide a variety of private investment options through a deal with CAIS, which provides technology designed to unlock alternative investments for advisors and their clients. The service will be offered starting on May 5 through a business line called Edward Jones Generations, which is open to investors with $10 million or more in assets, but will eventually be extended to more of the firm’s clientele. Russ Tipper, principal and head of products at Edward Jones, said it’s too early to say what the criteria for investing in alternatives will eventually be set at. Rather than choosing a fixed investable asset threshold for all accounts, Edward Jones is more likely to look at every client’s portfolio individually and decide if alts have a place. “We’re going to make sure it’s an appropriate portion of a client’s portfolio, which could be as little as zero to as high as 20% depending on the objective they’re trying to solve for.” Edward Jones has roughly 9 million clients but doesn’t say how many have more than $10 million in investable assets.
SEC’s proposed rules to offer retail investors access to closed end funds that invest in private assets, such as hedge funds and private equity through fractionalization enabled by tokenization
Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) new Chair, Paul Atkins discussed the SEC’s approach to innovation under the new administration. Apart from discussing crypto, he also proposed relaxing rules for retail investors in closed end funds that invest in private assets, such as hedge funds and private equity. With more companies and “unicorns” staying private for longer, these investment opportunities are often only available to accredited investors. Though riskier, these opportunities offer upside that retail investors cannot currently access. According to SEC statistics, the aggregate value of private funds grew from $9.5 trillion in 2012 to $30.9 trillion in 2024. “This common-sense approach will give all investors the ability to seek exposure to a growing and important asset class, while still providing the investor protections afforded to registered funds,” Chair Atkins said. From an investor perspective, the fractionalization enabled by tokenization helps to lower the minimum investment amount, which is a benefit even for wealthier investors looking to diversify their portfolios. This advantage could be diluted if more permissive laws make private market assets more accessible in traditional formats with smaller denominations. That said, some younger investors that lean into crypto prefer to have the flexibility of holding other assets on chain. The real upside for tokenization is more likely to come from the asset manager side. Most firms are simply not set up for retail access – even big names like Blackstone and KKR face operational challenges when managing thousands of smaller investors. This is where tokenization offers clear advantages. Recognizing this opportunity, major private market players are already moving toward tokenized structures.
VC fund QuantumLight uses an AI model to identify outlier growth-stage companies with all 17 of its deals to date been guided by the model
QuantumLight, a quantitative venture capital firm founded by Revolut’s Nik Storonsky has closed on a $250 million fund for backing founders across AI, Web3, Fintech, SaaS and Healthtech. The $250 million Fund I, which closed at hard cap, is backed by a global group of top-tier LPs, including billionaire tech founders and prominent institutions. Since launching in 2022, all 17 of the company’s deals to date have been recommended by its proprietary AI model. The Fund’s proprietary AI model, Aleph, is purpose-built to identify outlier growth-stage companies. Storonsky said “Our ambition is to build the world’s best systematic venture capital and growth equity firm – and support the new generation of founders by sharing some of the operating principles that we developed at Revolut.” This includes the launch of playbooks for portfolio companies to learn from the success of Revolut in hiring top talent and driving high-performance companies. Says CEO Ilya Kondrashov: “Our goal is to make the invisible operating systems behind iconic companies like Revolut visible and replicable. Founders shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to building high-performing teams. By sharing these tools and frameworks, we’re helping scale-ups move faster from day one.”
Nasdaq’s private company dataset and API to deliver real-time pricing on private, pre-IPO companies, integrating primary round data, secondary market transactions, and accounting data including mutual fund marks and 409A valuations
Nasdaq has partnered with Nasdaq Private Market (NPM) to provide greater price transparency and valuation visibility into private, pre-IPO companies, including unicorns and startups. The Tape D private company dataset, available through API integration via Nasdaq Data Link, addresses critical transparency challenges by helping investors evaluate private holdings with greater confidence, enabling banks to structure private transactions more effectively, supporting wealth advisors and shareholders in managing liquidity needs, and equipping private companies with valuable insights for capital raises and tender offers. The comprehensive data product delivers real-time private market pricing by integrating primary round data, secondary market transactions, and accounting data. The launch of this data partnership marks the latest step in Nasdaq’s commitment to enhancing transparency, access, and portfolio management capabilities across the public-to-private investment spectrum.
Bloks integration with Wealthbox CRM enables financial advisors to sync AI-generated meeting summaries, tasks and relationship profiles straight into Wealthbox contact records; creates always-fresh profiles by pulling context from emails, calendars and the web
Bloks unveiled a native integration with Wealthbox, enabling financial advisors to sync AI-generated meeting notes and enriched client data directly into the CRM they already trust—all while maintaining the highest standards for security and compliance. Bloks connects to leading CRMs such as Salesforce, Affinity, HubSpot (beta), and now Wealthbox—plus your email, calendar, every major meeting platform, and curated internet sources to deliver the most comprehensive client intelligence available today. Even better, it takes under two minutes to set up and runs quietly alongside the tools advisors already use. What the Integration Delivers: Structured sync in a click – Send Bloks’ meeting summaries, tasks, and relationship profiles straight into Wealthbox notes and contact records. 360° data gathering – Pulls context from conversations, emails, documents, calendars, and the web to create deep, always-fresh profiles. Ask Bloks — your Relationship GPT – Prep for meetings, surface hidden opportunities, or run quick analyses with natural-language prompts. Two-minute setup, 5–8 hours saved weekly – Early adopters reclaim nearly a full business day—without changing workflows.