Asset management firms face a technology gap that could hinder their ability to meet investor expectations, according to Lior Yogev, the CEO and co‑founder of FundGuard.
Legacy systems lag behind modern portfolios
FundGuard, a New York‑based fintech launched in 2018, positions itself as a cloud‑native, AI‑enabled accounting platform for funds. Yogev says many asset managers still rely on infrastructure that is three to five decades old, built on on‑premise hardware and batch‑oriented processes. Those systems struggle to handle portfolios that blend listed securities, derivatives, private credit, private equity and digital assets, especially as markets operate nearly around the clock.
In the past, managers could run calculations in separate silos and later consolidate reports. The approach is becoming unsustainable. Investors demand more timely information, regulators require stronger resilience, and fee pressure squeezes profit margins while trading volumes and operational risk rise.
FundGuard’s cloud‑first solution
FundGuard’s platform runs on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, linking directly to market data feeds, ingesting transactions, maintaining holdings and delivering real‑time valuations. The system supports front‑, middle‑ and back‑office workflows, offering features such as NAV oversight, ETF basket management and private‑markets accounting on a single suite.
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The company began by providing a contingency tool for NAV calculation, designed to back up mutual funds and ETFs when primary platforms failed. That early focus addressed a genuine weakness: legacy accounting systems had experienced outages, forcing manual valuations and increasing error risk.
After proving its reliability in production, larger institutions began to ask whether FundGuard could replace their entire legacy stack. Yogev says the platform’s “API‑first” design and built‑in AI capabilities aim to detect anomalies, automate routine tasks and lower operational risk, rather than chase novelty.
From a broader perspective, the shift toward real‑time, integrated data environments reflects an industry‑wide move to reduce friction between public and private market operations. As portfolios grow more complex, the need for a unified record that can serve multiple stakeholders—asset owners, administrators and custody banks—becomes a strategic priority.
Regulatory pressure and the push for resilience
European regulators, through the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), have made operational continuity a board‑level concern. Yogev observes that firms now evaluate infrastructure for transparency, control and recoverability. Cloud‑native platforms provide higher availability and scalability than aging on‑premise solutions.
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FundGuard remains privately held, employing more than 150 staff across New York, Tel Aviv, Boston, Toronto, London and Dublin.
Key differentiators highlighted by Yogev include support for both public and private markets, 24/7 real‑time operation, multiple portfolio views, API‑first architecture, cloud delivery and embedded AI. The platform also offers workflow management, exception handling, reconciliation, reporting dashboards and data connections to Snowflake and Databricks. Future enhancements may extend to performance attribution and compliance tools.
Outside of work, Yogev, a 49‑year‑old father of two, enjoys basketball.
He follows the Boston Celtics and plays tennis twice a week. His personal schedule reflects the intensity of building a global fintech operation, yet he remains focused on delivering a modern system of record that can keep pace with the shifting asset‑management environment.
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