The world of pension funds and investment funds is often regarded as traditional. Until now, it has largely been dominated by major financial institutions that innovate little and push new entrants out of the market. Amsterdam-based AssetCare is challenging that status quo—and doing so successfully. “The time is here for some disruption.”
In 2006, Bram Schrijver (54) decided to take on the giants of the investment world. He founded his own company, AssetCare, providing investment administration services to institutional investors. What followed was a long journey to build trust, but today the firm competes—like David versus Goliath—with major market players such as JP Morgan and IQ-EQ. AssetCare now serves institutions including Atradius, Philips Pension Fund, and Van Lanschot Kempen.
Since early 2021, Bram has been joined at AssetCare by young entrepreneurs Tom Straver (28) and Sam Zwaan (29). During this period, revenues have tripled and the company now administers total assets in excess of €36 billion, with a team of just fifteen employees.
“In the beginning, it was difficult for two young guys to convince people with more than thirty years of experience. We would walk into a boardroom already one goal down,”
Tom Straver, co-owner of AssetCare
Serving half of the Dutch crypto funds
AssetCare makes good use of the Darwinian principle: the company is better able to adapt to change than its competitors. The market’s giants have struggled to adjust to changes in pension legislation and the emergence of crypto funds. AssetCare, by contrast, embraced the crypto boom of recent years. “It’s a new market that doesn’t fit within existing systems and processes,” Tom explains. “Many parties therefore chose to stay away from it. We responded quickly by building new systems, and as a result we now serve approximately half of the crypto funds in the Netherlands.”
AssetCare’s ambition is to open up a conservative market and lower the barriers to investing for others. Tom adds:
“On average, setting up an investment fund used to take six to seven months. We have already reduced that to three months. In addition, we have managed to reduce total start-up costs— which can easily rise to EUR 30,000—by around 30 percent.”
AssetCare founders complement each other
According to Bram, Tom, and Sam, they have found the right mix within the investment world. Bram brings decades of experience and trusted relationships with large institutional clients in the Netherlands, while the younger Tom and Sam provide the much-needed technological translation within the market. The trio considers their complementary skill sets essential to making a collaboration like this successful.
The careers of Tom and Sam began at LYNX, one of the larger European brokers. There, they were the initiators behind the business unit serving hedge funds.
“Within LYNX, especially in the early years, we were essentially entrepreneurs within an established organization,” Tom explains. “In those early days, it was difficult for two young guys to convince people with more than thirty years of experience. We would walk into a boardroom and usually start one goal down. But we learned so much from every conversation and gradually built credibility within the sector. Within our network, we often heard that there were few parties capable of guiding them through the structuring of their funds. That’s how we laid the foundation for what is now our core business,” Tom adds.
Challenges become opportunities amid increasingly complex regulation
Every entrepreneur knows that after the pioneering phase, the real challenges begin. At LYNX, a challenge turned into an opportunity when the firm was confronted in recent years with increasingly complex regulation.
“Like any other financial institution, LYNX was faced with stricter requirements in the areas of anti-money laundering, investor information, and reporting obligations to supervisory authorities,” Sam explains. “Within a short period of time, processes had to be reviewed, policies tightened, and systems developed. This turned out to be something we were good at, and we became part of a task force together with, among others, the board and consultants specializing in compliance, IT, and operations.”
“Where our focus in the early years was on growing the business, over the past two years we have mainly worked on the legal and regulatory aspects of running a financial institution. We are now reaping the benefits of that experience, because this market, too, is facing an increasing wave of regulation,” Sam adds.
“The combination of youth and experience gives us a unique position in the market: we can innovate while carrying a seal of trust. That forms the basis for our future growth,”
Sam Zwaan, co-owner of AssetCare
Proprietary technology platform built from the ground up
In the coming years, AssetCare aims to further lower barriers and continue its chosen path of innovation. “Many of the current players in the market are bureaucratic and, due to their size and history, tied to outdated technology. New entrants also struggle to gain traction because of high minimum costs, complexity, and the lack of an established track record. As only legacy software solutions were available in the market, we decided to build our own system entirely from the ground up. This allows us to provide fund managers and investors with insights in a way that we have been able to design fully according to our own vision,” Sam explains.
“We want to make collective investments accessible and attractive through increased digitalization, without losing sight of the personal relationship,” Sam concludes. “The combination of youth and experience gives us a unique position in the market: we can innovate while carrying a seal of trust. That is the foundation for our future growth.”
