Universal Investment acquires B2B online investment platform CAPinside / development of a "single stop sales platform"

The Universal-Investment Group has acquired CAPinside GmbH, becoming its majority shareholder as of 17 July 2020. CAPinside was formed in October 2018 and employs around 40 staff at its head office in Hamburg. CAPinside is an independent B2B online investment platform for the investment market, focussing on fund marketing and sales initiation. It networks intermediaries, in particular IFAs, with asset managers and fund initiators and brings them together on the basis of algorithms generated using artificial intelligence, via high quality content and investment analyses as well as data-driven bespoke matching. With around 90,000 users per month and almost 20,000 members, CAPinside is the fastest growing professional online investment platform in the German-speaking region and market leader in Germany. At present, CAPinside is further diversifying its spectrum with future-orientated investment managers offering Blockchain-based investments.

Universal-Investment and CAPinside are united in the idea of a platform which allows investors and fund managers to connect easily and according to their needs. Both the fund initiators and asset managers working with Universal-Investment, as well as the clients and members of CAPinside, benefit from the opportunities presented by the takeover. In terms of platform economics, the broader and more diverse the fund initiators’ platform offering, the more attractive it becomes for IFAs and investors as users. New digital cooperation opportunities arise as a result.

The acquisition is a key digital building block in Universal-Investment’s strategy to support fund initiators across all asset classes with the broadest possible sales offering. A comprehensive, analogue and technological “single stop distribution platform” will be created across all channels for every target group. Following the successful takeover of labs, the IT data specialist and vendor of front office solutions for asset managers, in early 2019, the transaction constitutes another important milestone for the Universal-Investment Group in strategically enhancing its service portfolio as a springboard for  further growth with its clients, and thereby achieving its aspired goal of becoming the leading European fund service platform and management company for all asset classes by 2023.