Published on
WestCap made an early investment in Addepar through its Strategic Operator Fund and as a partner at the firm, Jaime Hildreth has had a front-row seat to witness Addepar’s explosive growth in recent years. Her experience at the nexus of technology and private capital markets brings a unique perspective to our board and the opportunities awaiting Addepar.
Please describe your career path. What brought you to WestCap and now Addepar’s Board of Directors?
I started my career with General Electric’s Financial Management Program and Corporate Audit Staff. I then joined a GE subsidiary that was soon sold to Blackstone Private Equity. Through that connection, I was offered an opportunity to join Blackstone in 2008 with the mandate of building out its portfolio monitoring, valuation and investor reporting capabilities. That’s when I met Laurence Tosi (L.T.), founder and Managing Partner at WestCap, who was also the CFO of Blackstone at the time. L.T. and I recognized that Blackstone needed a “source of truth” for its portfolio data. And if Blackstone needed a solution…the whole industry needed one.
To address this, we founded iLEVEL, which offers portfolio monitoring and management for alternative investments. As I was approaching my eighth year at Blackstone, my gut was telling me it was time to go back to a Blackstone portfolio company and gain some real operating experience. And so that’s what I did. I joined Ipreo and the first acquisition we made was iLEVEL to form Ipreo’s Private Capital Markets (PCM) division. Three years later, PCM was the fastest growing unit when it was sold to IHS Market (now S&P Global) for close to $2B. And that’s when the story of WestCap started to come together. For me, WestCap represents the culmination of the best of my experiences and people - it completes the circle, both professionally and personally. Today, as a Partner at WestCap, I’m on the Investment Committee, leading our Asset Management efforts along with a few of our notable FinTech investments, including Addepar. Since joining, WestCap has grown from ~$100 million of capital to ~$8 billion in assets under management today. It’s been an incredible journey so far and it’s just the beginning.
Addepar was the first investment for WestCap’s Strategic Operator Fund. Why did Addepar stand out?
Addepar was a company that we knew well in a highly attractive space. Alternatives offer a massive, addressable market—with a secular tailwind of $220 trillion in the retail channel. In addition, private markets are growing 3x as fast as public markets. We believe there is an untapped opportunity that Addepar can help address to bring the good things about public markets, like information flows and institutional trust, into private markets.
We also saw the opportunity for Addepar to go beyond its core offering through expansion into international markets, broader product offerings like Marketplace and benchmarks, and new market segments like institutions, for example.
Talk about some of the current trends in wealthtech—what’s stood out to you recently?
Alternatives have seen significant growth in demand, and correspondingly, a need to better manage these investments. This has led to an increased focus on modernization and digitization.
We’re seeing a rapid rise in the use of AI, big data and data science to augment traditional data aggregation and drive insights for better decision-making. Another trend is the increased acceptance of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies. Addepar recognized this as an area of opportunity from the beginning, building the platform with the ability to model any asset and currency in their clients’ portfolios. Technology is also playing a key role on the transaction side—with a further increase in digitization.
As a true thought leader in private capital markets and alternative investments, where do you see the industry headed in the next 5–10 years?
Private market investments will become more efficient and transparent—fully digitized from the underlying investment to the end investor. Alternatives have proven to be the highest-returning asset class, and with this, they’ll continue to grow and become more accessible to investors.
What challenges does this present in today’s volatile environment? With so many companies targeting wealthtech, how is Addepar unique?
I think the industry faces several challenges: data on alternatives continues to be a pain point. This is something I’m passionate about, and with my background, I’m leaning in with the team as we expand market reach and segments.
The Addepar platform functions as a true operating system that can drive value across all of the personas within a firm. Addepar is the top player in managing cross-asset classes. Many solutions handle just public or private investments but there’s a growing need to have visibility across the entire portfolio. Addepar is best positioned to solve this. As an open-platform technology, Addepar can seamlessly integrate with other best-in-class solutions to address needs for any persona.
Addepar has achieved exceptional growth and exceeded WestCap’s initial investment case. I’m excited to identify opportunities where Addepar can function even more effectively as a mission-critical platform for investment management.
As a successful woman in financial services, what advice do you have for the next generation coming up?
First and foremost, there’s no single, direct path. Every woman should embrace risks and follow their instincts. I don’t think my gut has ever let me down.
Keep in mind that the moment you stop learning is the time to move on and tackle something new.
Your mentors and network contacts matter — a lot. Invest time and energy in those relationships.
Lean into flexibility — I’m excited for the future generations and women of tomorrow who have the opportunity to better balance work, family and life.
Be you!