- Sign up to free AFI briefing emails for exclusive industry updates and get ahead with AFI Intelligence membership
Altaira Strategic Partners, which provides back and middle-office solutions for investment funds, has announced a strategic partnership with DeepSee.ai, a specialist in agentic AI for financial services.
The collaboration marks a significant step toward building the next-generation operating model for private funds, said Altaira in a statement. The system will use intelligent automation to drive efficiency, scale and performance at a time of heightened competition for capital.
Moving the needle
“We needed an all-weather partner that could meaningfully move the needle,” said Michael Fastert, founding partner and CEO at Altaira.
“DeepSee’s financial services DNA, combined with their AI-first approach, gives us an edge in delivering operational alpha across our platform. For example, applying AI to treasury — such as optimizing collateral movements or managing borrow rates — can unlock powerful efficiencies for our clients.”
This strategic alignment brings together two firms aiming to modernize the infrastructure that underpins the alternative investment ecosystem. DeepSee’s team is made up of former leaders from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and other leading firms. It has spent years developing agentic AI solutions tailored to the nuances of financial markets.
How it will work
The partnership will embed DeepSee’s AI agents into Altaira’s core platform, enabling advanced portfolio intelligence and automation of complex workflows.
Unlike traditional outsourcing models that remain people-intensive, Altaira is focused on building a technology-enabled co-sourcing platform coupled with experienced managed service personnel that empowers asset managers to grow without scaling their internal headcount.
Altaira’s vision, according to Fastert, is to build the operating model of the future with a significant focus on technology enablement. At a time when AI capabilities are growing increasingly sophisticated, Altaira wants to deliver to its clients portfolio intelligence using DeepSee’s specialist agents, as well as enhance back and middle office processes.
A new operating system
“The core layer of our technology is trained exclusively on the language of financial services,” said Steve Shillingford, founder and CEO at DeepSee.
“With Altaira, we’re not just deploying software, we’re co-building a new operating system for the industry that helps firms, who lack the resources to support strategic initiatives, scale 10x without losing control.”
For Altaira, generative AI is core to its value proposition, not a bolt-on. The firm views intelligent automation as a force multiplier that augments people, processes and insights.
“The goal isn’t to replace talent, it’s to amplify it,” said Fastert. “With DeepSee’s agents, portfolio managers will gain more time, deeper insights, and faster decision-making capabilities. That’s how we help our clients get better, not just bigger.”
A key differentiator
In the current marketplace, competition for investment dollars remains fierce. Even a 30 to 50 basis point reduction in operational costs, achieved through smart automation, can have a material impact on a fund’s ability to raise and retain capital.
With performance and operational excellence increasingly under the microscope from investors, the ability to scale with generative AI tools is likely to become a key differentiator.
DeepSee’s Knowledge Process Automation platform gives Altaira’s clients a fast track to AI adoption — without requiring in-house technical teams.
DeepSee will work to automate high friction workflows, allowing investment houses to leverage AI with optimal efficiency, accelerating their path to AI adoption. By pre-building high-impact use cases across back and middle office functions, firms will have capacity to automate key workflows within days or weeks, rather than months or even years.
Domain knowledge
“There’s a tremendous amount of domain knowledge in financial institutions,” said Shillingford. “We’re not here to replace that. We’re here to help firms unlock it, and let their people focus on what matters most.”
With AI adoption moving from experimental to essential, Altaira’s platform becomes a plug-in path for managers to showcase innovation and operational agility to their investors.
“Altaira will continue what we did at TIG, where the focus was on looking for solutions for our managers. We were never looking to be just a vendor. It was very much a growth partnership.” Michael Fastert, founder and CEO, Altaira.
The collaboration marks a new chapter in how AI could transform fund operations: faster, smarter, and more scalable. This is more than simply streamlining workflows; it’s about helping fund managers identify new sources of growth and redefine their operating model for a digital-first future.
“As more managers understand the efficiency benefits of co-sourcing, it’s vital that we remain at the leading edge to deliver the best outcomes to our end clients,” said Fastert.
Altaira is headquartered in New York and span out last year from its parent group, AlTi Global, a leading independent global wealth manager with over $77 billion of assets under advisory and management.