Nine questions for the fund sponsor.
Funds-as-a-Service (also called fund hosting, ManCo-as-a-Service, or white-label fund platform) has become a meaningful alternative to building a standalone ManCo. The market is now varied: global platforms operating across jurisdictions, regional specialists in the ADGM and DIFC, and boutique firms offering FaaS alongside their own fund management practice.
Selecting the right FaaS provider is high-stakes: a sponsor is effectively outsourcing the regulated infrastructure of their fund for its full life. Below is a structured framework.
1. Is the provider's interest aligned with yours?
A FaaS provider makes money from hosting funds. A sponsor wants a successful, long-lived fund. These interests usually align, but not always. Ask: does the provider prioritise funds that fit their platform, or funds that will perform? Does their fee structure create incentives for AuM growth, quick launches, or long-term stability? Firms whose economics depend on volume tend to optimise differently than firms whose economics depend on reputation and quality.
2. What is actually included — and what is extra?
FaaS packages vary enormously in what they cover. At one end: a fully-bundled service covering ManCo function, fund structuring, regulatory filings, administrator selection, custodian selection, audit coordination, and ongoing operation. At the other end: ManCo function only, with the sponsor handling everything else. Both models have merit; they are not the same product. Ask for a written scope of what is in the base fee and what is billable.
3. How flexible is the structuring?
The value of FaaS depends on the provider's willingness to structure around your mandate. Providers running hundreds of funds typically operate on a limited palette of structures; anything outside the palette is either refused, priced as a custom engagement, or quietly nudged into something that fits. Sponsors with a straightforward mandate can absorb this. Sponsors with a distinctive strategy (tokenisation, Shari'a compliance, unusual asset class, bespoke share classes, non-standard investor structures) should verify structural flexibility before commitment — including asking for examples of similar structures the provider has built recently.
4. What is the sponsor's role in fund governance?
When the ManCo is someone else's entity, the sponsor's influence on the fund's decisions is a function of governance design. Ask: who sits on the fund's board? Who has veto rights on material decisions? How are investment guidelines set, and who can adjust them? What is the sponsor's role in investor communications? A FaaS engagement that gives the sponsor minimal governance input is fast to set up but constraining over the fund's life.
5. How does conflict between the provider's other funds and yours get handled?
A provider hosting multiple funds will inevitably face situations where two hosted funds want the same allocation, or where the provider's own funds compete with a hosted fund's strategy. The policies and governance around this are material. Ask for the provider's conflict-of-interest policy and a specific example of how a past conflict was resolved. Specialist providers typically have tighter conflict frameworks than volume platforms.
6. Who are the people, and what happens if they leave?
A FaaS engagement is only as good as the people executing it. Key-person risk is real: if the senior compliance officer, the CIO, or the CEO who you engaged with leaves, what does the engagement look like? Ask about tenure in the team, succession planning, and what commitments the provider makes about team continuity. At smaller specialist firms, the answer is usually "the same people because the team is stable"; at larger platforms, the answer is more often "the account team rotates, but the service continues".
7. What does the exit look like?
A sponsor may eventually want to migrate to a different ManCo, wind down the fund, or convert to an in-house ManCo. Ask the provider, in writing, what the exit mechanics are: notice periods, migration support, cost of transfer, access to fund records, continuity for investors during transition. Firms that have thought carefully about exit design tend to have thought carefully about the full relationship.
8. What is the provider's regulatory track record?
Every FaaS provider will have had regulatory interactions. Most will have been routine. Some will not. Ask specifically: has the provider faced any regulatory enforcement, censure, or material findings in the last five years? Public regulator registers typically disclose this, but it is worth asking the provider directly and comparing the answer to the public record.
9. Does the provider actually understand your strategy?
Technical excellence in fund structuring is necessary but not sufficient. A great FaaS engagement depends on the provider understanding what the sponsor is actually trying to do — the investment thesis, the investor base, the commercial objectives. Providers who treat every fund as fundamentally the same will deliver a structurally competent but strategically generic product. Providers who engage substantively with the sponsor's thesis tend to produce better outcomes.
The simplest test: after the first substantive conversation with a provider, does the sponsor feel the provider understood the strategy well enough to ask good questions back? If yes, the engagement is likely to be productive. If no, structural competence alone will not bridge the gap.
A practical summary
Sponsors who evaluate providers against these nine questions typically land with specialist firms that combine structural flexibility, senior-led engagement, clean regulatory record, thoughtful governance design, and genuine engagement with the sponsor's strategy. NWM was built to rank well on all nine. The firm is happy to walk a prospective sponsor through the framework and, where the fit is not right, point out where another provider might be better suited.