Envestnet brings interval funds onto UMA platform as focus sharpens on private credit

Envestnet is moving to make interval funds a more routine part of unified managed accounts, betting on advisors' appetite for semi-liquid private market exposure without adding another operational layer to their practices.

The company announced Monday that the first wave of interval funds is now available directly on its UMA platform, with more managers expected to be added over the course of the year.

The integration means Envestnet will handle research, trading, rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting and model updates for interval funds inside the UMA. Advisors and clients see those positions alongside traditional holdings, with performance and risk viewed at the household level rather than in a separate alternatives sleeve. Envestnet is pitching the move as a way for RIAs and broker-dealers to connect clients to private markets, particularly privately held companies that represent a large share of the US economy, while keeping existing workflows largely intact.

“Alternative investment managers are eager to democratize access to their investments throughout the financial services industry, but we believe the industry should not stop at access,” said Dana D’Auria, CFA, co-chief investment officer and group president of Envestnet Solutions. She said the firm’s goal is to “unify a historically siloed alternatives universe, so that these asset classes no longer feel like ‘alternatives.’”

The push comes as interval funds continue to gain traction in wealth management. Assets in interval funds reached about $98 billion at the end of 2024, a 31% jump from the prior year, according to Cerulli Associates. Much of that growth has been concentrated among a handful of managers, and private credit now accounts for a majority of interval fund assets.

RIAs in particular appear to be embracing the structure. Research from Alternative Fund Advisors found that interval funds were the predominant way RIAs accessed private credit in 2025, with adoption jumping to 80% from 58% the previous year. Limited partnerships still feature prominently in eligible client portfolios, but growth in other vehicles – such as nontraded and exchange-traded business development companies and tender-offer funds – has been more modest.

At the same time, the private credit complex is under more scrutiny as retail flows test liquidity limits. Cliffwater’s flagship corporate lending interval fund, a category bellwether, recently moved to cover only about half of repurchase requests for the current quarter after investors sought to redeem nearly 14% of shares outstanding, according to a widely reported letter to shareholders.

Reporting by the Wall Street Journal on the $42 billion fund's most recent quarterly disclosures found more than 3,600 individual holdings within its portfolio, including direct middle-market loans and stakes in other private credit funds. A preponderance of investments in unrecognizable names, along with a lack of explanation for changes in at least one of the fund's holdings over the years, is likely to raise alarms among newly invested retail investors with lower risk tolerance than institutional money. 

Read more: Another troubling week for investors in private credit, BDCs

Envestnet is positioning itself to address both adoption and risk perception through education as well as plumbing. The firm has launched an Alternatives Research Center that includes portfolio-construction guidance, use cases and thought leadership on interval funds and other products.

“The inclusion of the first interval funds is the latest milestone in our ongoing initiative to give advisors the power to integrate private markets directly into unified managed accounts,” said Todd Rais, head of research and CIO support at Envestnet, noting that the firm aims to ease advisor concerns by supporting compliance, trading, and other operational demands for alternatives inside the UMA.