Issue Q2 2020

26 APAC / Issue Q2 2020 , DarcMatter launches institutional services in response to South Korea’s growing alternative investment demand. DarcMatter (DM), the global award winning FinTech platform for alternative investments headquartered in New York City, has announced the launch of DarcMatter Institutional Services to assist with accessing the South Korean capital markets. DarcMatter’s alternative investment platform, which has been active for over five years, allows global investors to directly access a universe of qualified alternative investment opportunities. In 2017, DarcMatter focused on expanding additional support for investors within the South Korea market and selected South Korea as its second expansion market, outside of Greater China. In addition to its technology offering, through DarcMatter Institutional Services, DarcMatter will expand its offerings from a core focus on private funds to other non-traditional alternative investments, including commercial real estate, infrastructure and project finance. Sang H. Lee, DarcMatter President and CEO, reflects on the expansion into South Korea noting, “Early on we had realised the importance of the APAC region in the growth of the alternatives investment industry. When we opened up our Seoul office, we further homed in on our focus to a market that we believe will be one of the fastest growing investor markets in the region. To enhance the capabilities of our technology offering, we are offering a more customised approach to ultimately achieve the goal of better accessibility and transparency in global alternative investment markets.” As a critical component of an investment portfolio to potentially mitigate against economic downturns and decrease overall correlation to the market, South Korean investors are increasingly looking toward a wider breadth of alternative investments. According to the Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA), the areas that remain strong and are continuing to grow include infrastructure, energy and real estate, as opposed to traditional investment routes. Noted by Preqin, the Korean investor landscape is also rapidly changing. Historically, the public entities such as the National Pension Service (NPS), Korean Investment Corporation (KIC), the Korea Post etc. were the only players in the market. We have seen that landscape expand to private financial institutions that are also becoming increasingly more active in overseas investments. Of especially strong interest has been the energy, infrastructure, and real estate industries. Expanding into the APAC Region