private-capital
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Bill Ward Spent a Decade Making Private Capital Less Allergic to Good Software
He saw venture firms backing the future while reporting to investors with PDFs and email. Ark was his practical answer - software built around the people who actually run the funds.
Steven Millner Built the Machinery Behind Private Equity
Before private equity had portals, dashboards and a trillion-dollar back office, Steven Millner was fixing lawnmowers and learning that durable systems begin with patient hands.
Danyal Özdüzenciler
Danyal Özdüzenciler is the co-founder and CEO of Capsa AI, a London- and New York-based startup building what it calls an AI operating system for the private capital industry. A former private equity and investment banking professional with Turkish-German roots, he founded Capsa AI in 2024 with Callum Downie after a first failed startup taught him hard lessons about grit. In June 2026 the company raised an $18m Series A, bringing total funding to about $20m, on the back of 14x year-on-year revenue growth and a 100% customer renewal rate.
Ferdinand Roberts
Ferdinand Roberts is the founder and CEO of Asset Class, a fintech company building an end-to-end software platform for private capital firms - covering fundraising, investor relations, investor portals, deal flow, portfolio management and fund administration. A technology executive with more than 25 years in the sector and senior roles at Yahoo!, Cisco and Ariba, he launched Asset Class in 2020 after seeing firsthand how disjointed private-market operations were while running capital markets for a private equity firm. In 2024 the company raised an $11.6M Series A led by Canapi Ventures, serving 300+ funds and around $33 billion in serviced assets across offices in Dublin, New York, London and Atlanta.
Peter Lehrman
Peter Lehrman is the founder and CEO of Axial, a New York based online platform where owners of small and lower middle market private companies meet buyers, lenders and financial sponsors. He also hosts the Masters in Small Business M&A podcast. Before Axial, he was on the founding team of Gerson Lehrman Group and worked in private equity at SFW Capital Partners.
Ross Mechanic
Ross Mechanic is the co-founder and CEO of Maybern, a New York fintech building the financial operating system for private funds. A software engineer by training, he watched fund accounting teams duplicate the same capital-call and waterfall math across roughly 100 spreadsheets at Cadre, and built Maybern to automate it. The company supports more than $80 billion in assets across 150+ fund vehicles and raised a $50 million Series B led by Battery Ventures in late 2025.