Client spotlight: Investa Solutions

We spoke to Tullio Musso, CEO and Founder of Investa Solutions, for our next Delio Client Spotlight. We discussed how he’s combining his 20 years of private banking experience with Delio’s technology and services to help wealth managers deliver tailored investment products for their clients. 

Can you tell me a bit about yourself and your professional background?

I spent the last 20 years working at some of the world’s leading private wealth managers, including JP Morgan and Pictet. During this time, I’ve done any work you could do in the sector without being a banker! 

Fundamentally, I’m a jack of all trades within the wealth management world. I have been responsible for anything the client might have touched; investments, credit, reporting, right through to legal processes. This has allowed me to develop a broad knowledge across these various functions and one of my biggest professional pleasures is being able to connect the dots between them. 

I like to explain my job as being a ‘translator’. I can speak the language of an investment manager, a trader, of legal and compliance, or a banker. This means I can work with them all to agree on a mutually beneficial outcome. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years, and what I do now with Investa Solutions.

About a year ago, I left the big banking scene to set up my own company from where I started advising and consulting with Delio and two other players in the market. Then I decided to take the plunge and create my own platform.

Tell us about Investa Solutions and the story of how it came about.

I had a lot of exposure to creating products and services whilst working with big institutions. Since leaving, I’ve spoken with lots of ex-bankers that I used to work with who have created their own shop or joined smaller firms. One of the questions I always ask is what support they were missing since they left one of the larger banks. Essentially, I built Investa Solutions’ offering based on their answers. This includes consulting support, scouting, tools and offering services that they can plug into to provide a specialist solution for their clients. 

However, there was a common denominator for all of them – private assets. In a small shop, they may not have the resource or structuring capabilities to access these types of assets. This means they’re unable to offer their clients some of the flagship products they used to at the big banks. This is how my partnership with Delio came about.

Delio offers me the capability to put a service offering together that is of the same quality as working in-house at large banks, but at half the price. It’s a big step forward for disintermediation from the big banks, and also for democratisation of private markets, which I’m a strong believer in.

What would you say are the main opportunities for Investa Solutions?

There is a massive opportunity for investor education, especially in Europe, where private markets allocation is lower, and VC investment is only around 1% and mostly accessible only by institutional clients. 

This is improving, but the fees associated with newer products on the market are still very high and I can see a number of conflicts within them. To combat this, through my B2B2C solutions I help second or third tier banks and multi-family offices to tailor their offerings to include private markets. Within this proposition, I can connect investors and help them structure tailored programs picking among the top 30 funds raising capital every year, customised depending on the client, as well as a number of direct deals.

The other opportunity I found was with fund managers. Large houses are waking up and starting to buy or build platforms like Delio as they come to understand the value of digital distribution, regulatory compliance and scalability. I realised that smaller product houses, which might only have one or two products and fundraise every few years, can’t afford or justify buying a platform, yet they still face the same regulatory challenges and need for digital distribution.

From witnessing the power of Delio’s software and structuring capabilities, I recognised I could offer a solution which addresses their challenges by distributing through my own platform. I offer this either through their own private environment, or they can harness the benefit of all the investors across the platform.

Investa Solutions uses Delio’s regulatory support and deal structuring solutions, as well as our core technology. How does the Delio platform help you to achieve your goals?

Throughout my tenure in big banks, the marketing activity of private markets, while being a known cash-cow, had always been the most manual, paper-intensive, cumbersome and risky activity for the bankers. I used to have a person in the team whose only job was to contact offices worldwide to track what documents were sent out to whom, how many soft commitments were out there, at what stage of the process the subscription documents had reached, etc. At best, I had a weekly snapshot of the book building activity available on a spreadsheet. 

Now, Delio’s technology means that investors receive an invite to a professionally designed platform, investor conversations can happen online at any time, and every action is tracked. I can see when investors log onto the platform and what action they take. I know at any given point how many users I have, how many are active, and it’s all documented digitally.

This means I, and my team, can concentrate on value add client servicing and investment due diligence rather than on administrative tasks.

The efficiency I’ve gained through using the Delio platform is fantastic. In one day I’m able to reach 50+ investors and know where they stand. Historically, I would’ve been able to reach out to five or six investors through calls or meetings in the same amount of time. That scalability factor is making a real difference.

Client engagement is also improving. Before I had the Delio platform in place, I was promoting deals but would struggle to predict how much uptake there was likely to be. Now, the deals are presented with an associated deadline, I can gauge how much digital interest they’re generating, and the investment process can be started through the push of a button. As a result, I’ve managed to raise more money far more quickly. 

Overall, having a platform like this is a victory in itself. I first evaluated a private asset platform back in 2006 when I was working for a large bank. 16 years later, that organisation still works manually. To be able to put together my own Delio-powered platform within two months is great for Investa Solutions and my clients.

What about Delio’s regulatory and structuring support?

Organising regulatory cover was the number one challenge I needed to overcome in order to get me started. As a new start-up with a small team, outsourcing regulatory support to Delio meant that I was able to offer my clients the types of products they desire, whilst reducing the governance requirements that come with them.

Using Delio’s Structuring Solutions was also a bit of a no-brainer. As you only really have the end product in place once you’ve done the structuring, it made sense to hand this over to Delio’s team who have decades of experience in this area. Being able to digitise and deliver the structuring process through the platform was also a great benefit.

The beauty of Delio’s offering is that it’s helping me to deliver a holistic private markets solution. It combines digital delivery, information management, user experience and efficiency, all under the Investa Solutions brand. That really makes the platform feel like an integral part of the organisation and adds so much value for us and our clients.

Looking towards the future, where do you see yourself and Investa solutions going?

I left big firms to go small, and I’m happy to stay small. It allows me to innovate and be flexible, and focus on providing solutions to entrepreneurs and clients, rather than handling politics. 

I will continue to grow Investa Solutions’ product offering so it is aligned to my clients’ needs. For example, I’m putting together a private equity programme with an innovative liquidity feature that will allow clients to benefit from a fully diversified private equity allocation while still having the opportunity to exit in specific circumstances.

I also have an interesting pipeline in sustainable finance. While I do believe that the hype around ESG has been subjected to a lot of over-marketing in the public markets, there’s a huge opportunity to do well financially from investing in innovative companies, products and business models that do good for the planet and people.

Like everything else, the industry will continue to evolve, so there’ll always be different ways of structuring deals and further democratisation will happen. Therefore, I’m happy to partner with an industry leader like Delio to stay on top of these changes and evolve my offering appropriately. 

It’s important for me to remain close to my clients, investors and funds so that I can continue to be that ‘translator’ for them. In doing so, I’ll be able to connect them and add value whenever possible.