Leaders List Interview: 60 seconds with William Rudebeck, Bite Investments
This week, Citywealth caught up with William Rudebeck, the co-founder and CEO of Bite Investments. Bite is a tech platform built to deliver alternative investments and private market strategies to HNW investors and advisors.
An entrepreneur at heart, William co-founded VCP Advisors back in 2009, which has since become a leading Alternatives Asset Management advisory business, having successfully advised on fundraisings for alternative investment funds aggregating over $13bn. As of 2019, William stepped down from the day-to-day running of VCP to focus on the build out of Bite.
He tells Citywealth how Bite is disrupting the wealth management industry by providing greater access to alternative investments with lower buy-ins and greater liquidity.
Tell Citywealth’s readers about your role.
I am the co-founder and CEO of Bite Investments. Bite is a global asset management, advisory and fintech company, specialising in alternative markets and tech solutions.
My day-to-day role is very much focused on sales and business development. I am fortunate to lead and work with a highly experienced team from the corporate finance, investment, and wider tech industry. We operate within the parameters of some of the world’s most respected regulatory regimes; Bite is majority owned by VCP Advisors, which is regulated in North America (FINRA / SEC), Europe (FCA, UK), Asia (SFC, Hong Kong) and Cayman (CIMA).
How are you disrupting the industry?
Bite’s Technology business provides private market technology strategies including turnkey white labelling options and bespoke technology solutions, to advisors, asset & wealth managers, private banks and fund managers digitising their operations. Bite’s specialist private markets technology solution allows its clients to compliantly streamline their client onboarding and investment management process. Bite’s technology platform automates the entire investment cycle from client suitability and distribution, through to subscription and reporting in a fully automated way.
Bite’s digital Asset Management business allows high-net-worth investors, independent financial advisors, wealth managers, family offices and other investment platforms to invest online, much smaller amounts than typical minimum buy ins, into top performing alternative investments, through aggregating commitments together, via feeder funds; in addition, it focuses on creating a secondary market, to provide liquidity to investors wishing to exit their stake earlier than the lifetime of the investment.
What is next for Bite in 2021 and beyond?
The pandemic has highlighted the need for wealth managers to digitise, so that they can both operate and offer alternatives more efficiently to their clients. Bite is not only riding this wave, but we believe, very much at the forefront at making this happen; the quality of our technology solutions, investment products, partners, shareholders, team, and global presence enables us to provide what many others cannot. For the remainder of 2021 and beyond, we want to continue strengthening in each of these areas, so that we continue to stay ahead of the curve, offering the best possible solutions to our client base.
What are you most proud of in Bite’s journey so far?
For a pre–Series A business, the team we have assembled and the platform and products we have created, is remarkable. Building the team across 6 different cities and 3 continents during a global pandemic (where there have been such strict travel restrictions) has been particularly tough. In a very short time frame, we have truly come a long way and laid what we hope to be a very strong foundation.
Describe your management style.
We work across a flat structure; actually, that is not just my management style but the whole firm has a flat structure. We have an entrepreneurial mindset across the board. We believe in more of a ‘hands off’ leadership style, where the manager of each business area is allowed to focus and concentrate on what they know best. We try to make sure that everyone is supported and has what they need to achieve success.
If you weren’t in the wealth management industry, what else might you be doing?
Probably trying to find a gap in another market, that needs some sort of change or shake up. There are so many opportunities in every industry. If you assemble brilliant people within an industry and work extremely hard, there is no doubt that you can build something great.