Private credit crossed $2 trillion in global AUM in 2025 and continues to absorb middle-market lending share from regional banks. The platforms organizing this flow — from feeder-fund marketplaces for RIAs and individuals to institutional servicing and administration stacks — have become essential infrastructure for any wealth manager, family office, or institutional allocator with exposure to the asset class.
This review compares the leading platforms across three layers: (1) distribution & access platforms (iCapital, CAIS), (2) retail-accessible direct credit (Yieldstreet, Percent), and (3) servicing & admin infrastructure (Arcesium, Allvue, Solovis).
Snapshot: Platforms at a Glance
The dominant distribution rail for private credit (and broader alts) into the wealth channel. Plumbing-grade infrastructure used by most major wirehouses.
Audience: RIAs, wirehouses, family offices.
Direct competitor to iCapital with a more advisor-portal feel. Strong fund education content and integrated diligence (Mercer).
Audience: Independent RIAs.
Retail-accessible private credit, real estate, and structured products with low minimums. Quality of underwriting has been uneven historically.
Audience: Accredited individuals.
Focused exclusively on short-duration private credit deals; the most credit-discipline-forward of the retail platforms.
Audience: Accredited individuals, small institutions.
Institutional-grade post-trade infrastructure now extended to private credit; data, accounting, and portfolio analytics in one stack.
Audience: Hedge funds, large allocators.
Front-to-back software for private credit and PE GPs — deal management, portfolio monitoring, fund admin integrations.
Audience: GP shops.
Key Findings
- Private credit dispersion has widened materially in 2025–26; platform-level diligence and reporting quality now matter as much as the underlying GP.
- BDC and interval-fund wrappers continue to dominate retail-accessible private credit; pure direct-deal platforms remain niche.
- Servicing infrastructure (Arcesium, Allvue) is increasingly bundled with reporting tools to satisfy LP demands for look-through transparency.
- Tokenized private credit (via platforms like Maple and Centrifuge) remains a small share of total AUM but is the fastest-growing distribution wrapper.
Distribution: iCapital & CAIS
iCapital remains the connective tissue of the wealth-channel alts market. The platform standardizes subscription paperwork, K-1 delivery, capital-call automation, and performance reporting across thousands of feeder funds, and is now the back end behind most wirehouse alts programs.
CAIS targets the independent RIA channel with a more product-page advisor experience plus integrated Mercer diligence reports. The two platforms compete on roughly the same axes but tend to win in different segments.
Retail-Accessible: Yieldstreet & Percent
Both platforms make individual private credit deals accessible to accredited investors at relatively low minimums. Percent has the tighter underwriting discipline and the more institutional borrower mix; Yieldstreet casts a wider net across asset classes and minimums but has historically had a more variable track record.
Servicing & Admin: Arcesium, Allvue
Arcesium (spun out of D.E. Shaw) provides bank-grade post-trade, accounting, and analytics infrastructure to institutional credit managers. Allvue serves GP shops with a front-to-back stack covering deal origination through investor reporting. Both have benefited from LPs demanding look-through reporting on private credit portfolios.
Market State 2026
Private credit's growth has continued but is now meeting genuine cyclical resistance: defaults are up modestly from the 2020–24 averages, and a wider performance dispersion across managers has elevated the importance of due diligence and post-investment monitoring. The platforms that have invested in transparent, real-time portfolio data — particularly Arcesium and the larger feeder-fund administrators — are the winners of this phase.
Related reading: Alternative Investments Hub · Private Equity Platforms · Alternative Investment Management Software.