Bridge, a fintech startup reimagining how alternative assets are managed and scaled, has raised $5.1 million in Seed funding to build what it calls “the operating system for the new age of private markets.”

The round brought together notable investors Thicket Ventures, Bill Lewis, Tricia Bain, Nate Sleeper, Dani Fava, Ed Swenson, Molly Bennard, Peter Lee, Chris Piazza, and David Hauser, all backing Bridge’s mission to simplify how fund managers, wealth advisors, and institutions handle alternative investments.

Founded by Alex Goodwin, Bridge aims to turn a traditionally opaque, spreadsheet-driven world into one powered by automation, insight, and interoperability.

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Building Infrastructure for an Industry Stuck in the Past

Private markets  -  from venture capital to private equity and hedge funds  -  now control more than $13.9 trillion in assets under management (AUM), according to Preqin’s 2025 report, and are projected to surpass $24.5 trillion by 2029. Despite that scale, the back-end infrastructure behind those trillions is still largely fragmented, manual, and error-prone.

Bridge wants to change that. Its platform unifies operations, investor relations, reporting, and compliance under one system, effectively serving as a digital backbone for alternative asset firms.

Instead of juggling a dozen tools or relying on PDFs and spreadsheets, fund managers can now operate from a single pane of glass  -  automating workflows, syncing data, and gaining real-time visibility across portfolios.

As Goodwin explains:

“The next decade of private investing won’t be about chasing yield  -  it’ll be about managing complexity. Bridge gives firms the infrastructure to scale without adding chaos.”

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Why Timing Matters in Private Market Technology

The opportunity for Bridge couldn’t be more aligned with market demand. As public markets grow more volatile, capital is flowing into alternatives faster than ever  -  and with it, regulatory expectations, LP transparency demands, and operational scrutiny.

A Deloitte 2025 study found that six in ten wealth management firms plan to expand exposure to private markets, but 72 % cite operations and data management as their top challenge. That means the first wave of winners won’t just be investment managers  -  they’ll be the platforms enabling them to scale responsibly.

Bridge sits at the center of that shift, tackling an invisible but expensive bottleneck that every firm experiences: the administrative drag between data, performance, and investor trust.

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Where True Leverage Lives for Founders

And this is where the deeper insight emerges  -  one that goes far beyond fintech.

What Bridge is building reveals a powerful truth for every founder: the biggest opportunities rarely exist where excitement is loudest, but where inefficiency is quietest.

Instead of competing for attention in saturated markets, Bridge found its edge in the infrastructure no one else wanted to touch  -  the unglamorous operational layer that powers the world’s most valuable assets.

That’s the ultra value drop here:
If you build something essential enough that other businesses depend on it to function, growth becomes gravity.

The irony of infrastructure startups is that their best marketing is invisibility. The less their users think about them, the more indispensable they become. That’s why Bridge’s strategy isn’t about creating another dashboard  -  it’s about creating dependence.

Founders chasing longevity should note this: real defensibility isn’t built through brand awareness or user count  -  it’s built when removing your product breaks an entire system.

That’s the quiet power of infrastructure. You don’t just serve a market; you become its foundation.

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Why Investors Are Betting on Bridge

Bridge’s investor roster reflects that understanding. Thicket Ventures led the round, joined by seasoned fintech operators and early backers from the venture and wealth management ecosystem.

These investors see Bridge not as a feature-rich tool, but as a new financial operating layer  -  one that could underpin how trillions in private assets are managed globally.

The firm’s traction in early pilots with boutique funds and family offices reinforces investor confidence. Firms using Bridge report faster LP reporting cycles, reduced compliance errors, and the ability to scale fund administration without increasing headcount  -  a clear signal that efficiency has become the new ROI.

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Fintech’s Infrastructure Boom and Market Outlook

The global fintech infrastructure market is projected to reach $187 billion by 2030, growing at a 16.8 % CAGR (Fortune Business Insights). Within that, back-office automation and alternative-asset operations represent some of the fastest-rising segments.

Meanwhile, PwC’s 2025 Global Asset & Wealth Management Report found that nearly half of private-market firms plan to replace legacy systems with integrated platforms by 2027. With operational spending per firm expected to increase by 35 % over the next four years, startups that reduce administrative burden while improving transparency are positioned for exponential demand.

Bridge’s timing aligns perfectly: it’s entering a trillion-dollar capital ecosystem in transition  -  one where digital infrastructure is no longer optional, but existential.

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What’s Next for Bridge

With $5.1 million secured, Bridge plans to expand its engineering and data teams, strengthen integrations with custodians and fund administrators, and roll out AI-driven analytics that give firms deeper visibility into fund performance, compliance status, and investor communications.

The company is also prioritizing partnerships with wealth-management platforms and institutional allocators to build a unified ecosystem where data flows seamlessly across every layer of the private-market value chain.

Bridge’s vision goes beyond software. It’s to make operational intelligence the new default for alternative investments  -  where every report, capital call, and investor update runs automatically, error-free, and insight-driven.

If successful, Bridge won’t just simplify fund management  -  it will redefine how private markets operate in the digital age: structured, transparent, and finally built for scale.

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