Built to Raise: Pre-Launch Decisions Through an Allocator's Eyes
Every pre-launch decision — domicile, terms, service providers, operations — is eventually read by someone deciding whether to give you money. I spent five years as that reader, conducting due diligence on 100+ managers, and five more building a licensed asset management firm from the ground up as its Responsible Officer. This package works through your build with that lens applied to each choice. To be clear about scope: I'm not your fund lawyer or administrator, and you'll still need them. My job is to tell you which of their options an allocator will respect, and which will cost you the meeting. Key components include, but are not limited to: - Manager entity and licensing: the SFC Type 9 pathway, Responsible Officer obligations, and what the licence signals to investors - Domicile and structure choices judged by investor acceptability — Cayman versus Hong Kong vehicles, and which investor bases each opens or closes - Fund terms that raise money: fees, hurdles, high-water marks, lock-ups, gates and redemption mechanics, and which terms allocators push back on first - Service provider selection: administrator, auditor, prime broker and custody — chosen for the credibility they confer, not just the price - Operational infrastructure that clears operational due diligence, from someone who has conducted it - Building the compliance and operations spine from a blank page, which I've done - The questions you will be asked, months before anyone asks them
What's included
- Structure and terms decided rather than still open
- The ability to brief your lawyer and administrator efficiently, which typically saves more in professional fees than this package costs
- Advance sight of which of your choices will draw investor pushback, before you've committed to them
- A clear division between what you handle yourself and what you outsource
Meet your expert
Paul W.
2x Finance Founder — I've Also Been the Investor You Pitch
I've spent twenty-plus years in Asian equities, in every seat the industry offers. Ten years on the sell side at CLSA in Tokyo and Hong Kong, ranked Asiamoney #1 best analyst in the region five years running. Five years inside hedge funds — running my own book as a portfolio manager at Horizon, and most recently as a senior analyst on a Japan market-neutral pod at Millennium. In between, five years independent as founder, CIO and head of alternative investments: I launched a hedge-fund allocation practice for family offices, conducting due diligence on 100+ managers, then co-founded an asset management firm and took it through SFC licensing as its Responsible Officer, growing it from a private-equity and real-estate shop into a multi-strategy alternatives platform. Today I also design and build agentic-AI research workflows for my own global-equities portfolio. Born and raised in Hong Kong, educated in England, and lived in Japan for a decade. Native English and Cantonese, fluent Mandarin and Japanese.
