Private Credit Infrastructure Gets A Full-Stack Overhaul

At F-Prime, we have long tracked the rise of alternative assets as they become a core piece of the modern investment portfolio, and the subsequent rise of infrastructure players enabling their expansion. Within “alts”, private credit has been one of the fastest-growing and most overlooked segments. With some estimates for the asset class standing at $1.8T (largely driven by direct lending in the US), others have sized the more complex asset-based finance market in emerging economies closer to $20T. In countries like Brazil, regulators are actively encouraging investment in private credit while simultaneously spurring the creation of new non-bank and fintech loan originators. Thanks to macroeconomic and regulatory tailwinds, the market has grown 230% over the last five years, driven largely by private markets behemoths such as Ares and Patria expanding their footprint into private credit. The sector’s AUM has now outpaced the technology that supports it, with both funds and originators relying on manual, headcount-heavy processes and technologies.

As co-founders of a $500M asset management firm in Brazil, Gustavo Mapeli and Manuel Netto were well-acquainted with the pain of managing a burgeoning asset class with outdated technology. The pair built and then spun out a software product that would solve those pain points, and the result is Kanastra: a back-office platform to manage private credit funds, enabling funds and originators to more efficiently structure, manage, and monitor private credit facilities.

Currently, there is very little infrastructure to support private credit markets in emerging markets, and Kanastra has emerged as an all-in-one tech platform for funds and originators alike. In a market with too many service providers to interact with on a manual basis — fund managers, fund administrators, custodians, controllers, securitization companies, BaaS platforms, loan-as-a-service providers, and monitoring agents — the company provides a tech-forward fund admin solution with end-to-end platform features. The team’s product roadmap is smart and ambitious, with plans to automate onboarding, day-to-day management, risk management, monitoring, analytics, and business intelligence.

We were thoroughly impressed by Gustavo, Manuel, and the Kanastra team when we first met in 2022, and it has been exciting to watch their growth in the years since. Kanastra is well on its way to becoming the leading fund admin provider in Brazil, serving some of the country’s largest banks (Itaú), investment management companies (XP Investments), private credit funds (Patria Investments, Vinci Partners), and originators (Solfácil, Creditas). Earlier this year, Kanastra secured a strategic investment from Itaú alongside a commercial agreement.

At F-Prime, we are proud to have backed foundational companies in the capital markets arena like Kensho, FutureAdvisor, and Canoe Intelligence. Today, we are thrilled to announce that we are leading Kanastra’s $30M Series B. Congratulations to Gustavo, Manuel, and the whole team on the milestone, and we look forward to the years of partnership ahead.

By Rocio Wu and Sarah Lamont

Forbes