Private market lockups push RIAs toward new lending options

Investors in private-market assets often face years-long lockups with few options for accessing cash. Startups such as Pluto Financial Technologies are introducing AI-powered lending solutions that allow advisors to offer clients credit against illiquid holdings without selling them.

Pluto, founded in early 2025 and backed with $8.6 million from Apollo Global Management, Hamilton Lane, Motive Ventures and Portage, launched its Wealth Equity Line of Credit to address the gap. The fintech platform lets investors borrow against private equity, venture capital, and private credit, with rates starting at in the mid-7% range, and loan-to-value ratios of 20% to 35%.

“If you come to us with a million-dollar pledge, you would get $200,000 to $350,000 out,” said Neel Ganu, Pluto’s co-founder and CEO. "My job is playing Tetris — taking unique loan requests and then matching them to the best balance sheet."

Loans within Pluto are structured so that interest and principal are repaid from future fund distributions, with no monthly obligation for clients. “There are no personal guarantees and no recourse. If the asset does not perform, our balance sheet partners absorb that risk,” Ganu said. Apollo and Hamilton Lane are among Pluto's balance sheet partners and, they approve which private market funds Pluto users can lend against.

Pluto uses AI to process private-market data, which is often unstructured and varied in format. “We use AI to standardize information, help save on legal review [time], and help our balance sheet partners make better credit decisions,” Ganu said. "Over time, I think AI is going to help us make better decisions and allocate capital into places that make sense for us."

The platform targets advisors whose clients already have substantial alternative allocations. “Institutions allocate about 23% into alternatives, but retail investors allocate only 3%. Yet institutions and retail actually hold about 50-50 in terms of AUM, so there’s a huge opportunity,” Ganu said.

RIAs like Dishmi Capital, a multi-family office, say managing liquidity for private-market holdings requires careful planning. The California-based firm manages about $145 million for its 53 high-net-worth clients, according to its latest Form ADV filing from December 2025.

“For clients who have or will be committing to drawdown funds, we help build custom liquidity management portfolios to meet the somewhat unpredictable funding needs associated with these types of private market investments," says Shang Chou, Dishmi Capital's co-founder and managing partner. “The goal of this is so that our clients don't sit in cash earning near zero returns, nor have them allocated to riskier assets such as equities where they might be subject to a capital call and forced to crystalize losses during an equity market drawdown."

While Pluto is positioning its platform to broaden access to private-asset lending for RIA-advised investors, advisors like Chou warn that borrowing against illiquid holdings can amplify risk if clients lack sufficient cash flow or are already heavily allocated to alternatives.

 “Leveraging one's balance sheet to tap into liquidity and subsequently allocating this liquidity to illiquid assets is a complex and risky trade. Sizing the allocation appropriately and considering the client’s entire financial situation is of utmost importance,” Chou said. "Having a deep understanding of the risks involved is only the first step, and it may be best to avoid doing this in size for most individual investors."

Analysts say these solutions come as RIA interest in private markets continues to grow. According to a 2025 KKR survey, nearly half of RIAs currently allocate 10% or more of client portfolios to private markets, and more than 80% expect to maintain or increase that exposure over the next five years. 

"We're sensitive to the costs of borrowing and the potential tax impact," added Chou. "As such, we prefer to have a multi-custodial relationship and have found varying differences in custodians in how they approach lending relationships with RIAs and multi-family offices. Where we feel that we can source better lending opportunities for our clients, we'll prefer to do this in-house versus outsourcing it to a third party asset manager."