Formulary CEO Letter

Formulary emerges out of stealth to reinvent fund administration with expert service and artificial intelligence.

Today, as CEO and Founder, I am thrilled to share the next chapter of Formulary Financial. 

We are publicly launching our AI-native fund administration services business and announcing new funding to bring the $23 trillion private markets industry into the 21st century. We are honored to partner with premier investors–Khosla Ventures, Acrew Capital, Company Ventures, Serena Ventures, amongst others–who share our ambition and commitment to transform the fund administration industry.

While private markets are growing at an unprecedented pace, the technology supporting them has remained stagnant. The result is an industry tethered to legacy systems, manual processes, and disconnected workflows. However, fund administration should be an accelerator for growth, not a bottleneck. GPs and LPs deserve a partner that offers precision, responsiveness, and strategic foresight. 

I’m privileged to build Formulary alongside extraordinary colleagues who bring decades of expertise and experience in working with some of the world’s most esteemed investment firms. Together, we’re united by a bold mission: to become the world’s most reliable operations partner for asset managers. We’re obsessed with the formulas, data, and mechanics that underpin the industry, and we share a deep conviction that fund administration must be human-led, grounded in trust, and built on genuine partnership.

Today, Formulary already supports investment firms managing billions in AUM, and we are scaling at a rapid pace as we onboard new clients. We equip investors with verified data, intelligent operations, and tailored insights to help them manage and scale their businesses.  

Solving the Shadow Fund Admin Problem.

Trillions of dollars in capital are currently managed using erroneous spreadsheets, outdated software, and redundant reconciliations. Incumbents have tried to address these issues by retrofitting legacy infrastructure with modern tools, while new software solutions attempt to replace accountants with agentic workflows. Neither has solved the core problem: data remains fragmented, and the need for expert support has only intensified as asset managers grow in complexity. I still remember a prominent private equity investor commenting that LP reporting is like watching a supernova happen–by the time they get an update on an investment, it’s already months out of date. 

The industry is also grappling with a perfect storm of talent challenges. Accountants spend more than half of their time on administrative tasks and manual calculations instead of delivering strategic insights. Long hours and underinvestment in technology have led to high turnover. Nationally, the accounting profession faces an acute supply shortage; 75% of current CPAs will reach retirement eligibility within 15 years, and fewer students are entering the field even as demand for specialized expertise increases. To maintain control, GPs have turned to shadow bookkeeping. What began as a short-term fix has become an unsustainable burden: resource-intensive, prone to human error, and a significant drain on productivity.

Our Formula: Expert Insight + Sophisticated Technology + Our Values

We founded Formulary to fix this. 

At Formulary, we offer comprehensive fund administration–accounting, reporting, compliance, audit, capital activity, and LP communications–all on a single platform designed to keep the data accurate, synthesized, and accessible in real time. We believe this work will always be human-led. Accountants need powerful tools and sufficient resources to be strategic and deliver unique insights to GPs and LPs.

We built our business on three core pillars:

• Proprietary Orchestration Layer: We combine AI, automation, and human experts into a single workflow, enabling seamless collaboration between accountants, investors, and third party providers. Our engine reduces repetitive tasks, empowering our accountants to oversee accounting processes and deliver actionable insights instead of static reports.

• Exceptional Client Service: High-touch, expert-driven service is a necessity, not a luxury. We guarantee a twenty-four hour turnaround on client inquiries and provide dedicated teams of top-tier accountants and technologists who act as true partners focused on long-term value creation.

• Reliable Data Core: We address the industry’s data problem by systematizing accounting processes. We track full data lineage—from source files to final outputs— and perform continuous data quality control checks, allowing GPs to drill down into underlying logic with confidence.

Our clients entrust us with sensitive, high-value financial data that powers their operations, and we treat that responsibility as core to our mission. This is why our culture is so important and is deeply embedded in how we build, make decisions, and draw meaning and joy from our work. 

We hold each other accountable to living our five core values: trust, excellence, client centricity, growth and ownership.

Our Clients and Design Partners

We have been privileged and deliberate in creating Formulary alongside leading global asset managers. By collaborating with them from day one, we’ve been able to stress-test our approach with real-world data. Our clients use Formulary to keep the data accurate, reduce manual overhead, and accelerate LP reporting cycles all in a secure, scalable system. 

Why asset managers choose Formulary:

• "The Formulary team functions as an extension of our own, providing proactive guidance across the investment lifecycle and giving us crucial peace of mind." (Head of Finance, Emerging Asset Manager)

• "Onboarding was seamless. Data migration that normally takes months took days, resetting our expectations for fund administration technology." (General Partner, LatAm-Focused Investment Firm)

• "Formulary’s detailed review uncovered significant inaccuracies produced by our incumbent administrator that could have resulted in multi-million dollar losses." (General Partner, Leading FinTech Investment Firm)

Our Shared Future

We are scaling our team of world-class accountants and technologists as we develop the modern infrastructure for private markets.

Join Us: If you are an ambitious problem-solver, obsess over relentless execution, and possess genuine drive and inspiration to transform financial services, we want you on our mission.

Learn About Us: If you are an investment firm ready to replace costly shadow books with a new standard of fund administration—powered by data systemization, expert insight, and sophisticated technology—we would be thrilled to hear from you.

Partner With Us: If you are a technology provider, legal advisor, or industry specialist committed to building a more integrated private markets ecosystem, we are looking for partners who share our vision and we would be excited to collaborate with you.

Alfia Ilicheva
Founder and CEO