At Cambridge Associates, we believe that success in alternative assets begins with a thorough understanding of the investments.
We take pride in cultivating deep, thorough knowledge of alternative assets, which we have been expanding and refining since the firm’s inception more than 35 years ago. Today, we have over 150 professionals dedicated to alternative assets research, program construction, oversight, and performance reporting, which enables us to cover a broad universe of possibilities for our clients and to identify opportunities that might not otherwise come to their attention.
Our proprietary manager databases are the cornerstone of our alternative assets research, and we believe that they are unparalleled in scope and content within the industry. In our proprietary databases, we have information on more than 2,000 hedge funds and 10,000 private investment funds globally, including company-level data on over 52,000 portfolio companies. We also track an estimated 1,600 open opportunities in U.S. and global ex U.S. private equity, venture capital, real assets, distressed investments, funds-of-funds, and secondaries—a key resource for our consultants to generate forward calendars that identify upcoming fundraising opportunities deemed attractive for a client’s program.
We also understand the tremendous responsibility involved in the audit process. For our advisory clients subject to an annual audit, we created a dedicated alternative assets audit support team to provide our clients with thorough and customized packets of information that reflect our due diligence and monitoring of the alternative assets, with a particular focus on valuation methodologies consistent with AU 332. Although a client can never fully delegate their responsibility to understand the valuation methodologies, these support packages, along with ongoing education around alternative assets, arm our clients with the information and knowledge necessary to give auditors comfort around the valuation of their alternative assets portfolios.