Private equity, private credit, and private real estate are moving into the default model portfolio.
Fidelity and Envestnet have launched turnkey models that include all three, available to RIAs and broker-dealers at scale. iCapital, GeoWealth, and BlackRock have jointly built a UMA combining private markets, direct indexing, and fixed-income SMAs in a single account.
For advisors, the TAMP you already use is becoming a private markets gateway. For investment firms, TAMP integration is now a primary distribution requirement for reaching the roughly $3 trillion in U.S. advisor-platform assets.
Dakota Marketplace’s private market intelligence helps track the platforms, RIAs, and wealth firms behind those flows.
In this article, we’ll look at why TAMPs and private markets are converging, who is building the infrastructure, and what advisors and investment firms should do about it.
Three Forces Driving the Convergence
1. TAMP adoption is structural
Advisor usage has grown from roughly 10% to approximately 45% over the past decade, per Dakota's TAMP report. Centralized portfolio construction means private markets exposure can be added to thousands of portfolios at once.
2. Private markets is no longer "alternative"
Wirehouse teams at Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Merrill treat platform-based alternatives marketplaces as core infrastructure. RIAs follow close behind. Allocations are shifting from a carve-out for the largest clients to a standard sleeve across the book.
3. The infrastructure is finally ready
iCapital, CAIS, GLASfunds, and SUBSCRIBE have digitized subscriptions, capital calls, and reporting workflows. The friction that historically blocked advisors from offering private markets at scale has come down.
What's Actually Being Built
- Fidelity + Envestnet: Turnkey model portfolios with private equity, private credit, and private real estate, distributed across RIAs and broker-dealers.
- iCapital + GeoWealth + BlackRock: Custom UMAs combining private market funds, direct indexing, and fixed-income SMAs. The advisor sees one portfolio; the client gets multi-strategy exposure with overlay management.
- Vestmark, SMArtX, Adhesion Wealth, GeoWealth: API-driven platforms expanding direct indexing and personalization alongside private markets access.
The common thread: collapsing the separation between public-market models and private-market allocations into a single advisor-facing experience.
Consolidation Is Accelerating the Shift
Capital is following the trend:
- GTCR takes AssetMark private for $2.7B (April 2024)
- Bain Capital takes Envestnet private for ~$4.5B (July 2024)
- Orion acquires Summit Wealth Systems (December 2024)
- AssetMark acquires Adhesion Wealth for ~$46M (June 2022)
These platforms are positioning to be the default operating layer for the next decade of advisor distribution, with private markets as a central capability.
See which platforms, RIAs, and wealth firms are allocating to private markets here!
What This Means for Advisors
- Know what your platform actually offers. The capability gap between platforms is widening. Two RIAs on two different TAMPs can have very different access to private equity, credit, and real estate.
- Understand the account structure. UMAs and Unified Managed Households (UMHs) are built to hold private markets alongside public-market models with overlay management and tax optimization. SMAs and ETF models alone are not.
- Client demand will keep climbing. Advisors who can articulate why a specific private allocation fits a specific client's plan will win against those who cannot.
What This Means for Investment Firms
TAMP integration is now a primary distribution requirement. Platform inclusion, particularly in model portfolios, has become the gating event for meaningful flows.
Being platform-ready means:
- Appropriate share classes for advisor channels
- Meeting platform due diligence and operational standards
- Clean data feeds and technology integrations
- Subscription, capital call, and reporting workflows that fit the platform's stack
Investment firms that treat TAMPs as a single channel will underperform. Different platforms reach different advisor segments with different operational requirements and inclusion processes. Mapping platform-by-platform is now core to any private markets distribution plan.
For more on the TAMP market structure, the largest platforms, and how each channel uses them, read our full report: Turnkey Asset Management Platforms (TAMPs): The Evolving Landscape.
Map the Platforms Driving Private Markets Distribution
TAMPs have evolved from back-office outsourcing into the operating layer of modern wealth management. With private markets now flowing through that same layer, the platforms have become both the front door for advisors expanding into alternatives and the gating event for investment firms trying to reach them.
The advisors who understand what their platform can actually do, and the investment firms who build distribution platform-by-platform, will be the ones who capture the next wave of allocation.
To see which platforms, RIAs, and wealth firms are most active in private markets, book a demo of Dakota Marketplace.
