Aqua Launches the Industry's First Turnkey Alternative Investment Platform, Backed by $18.8 Million from Google, Y Combinator, and Leading Venture Firms

Aqua gives wealth managers and fund sponsors an integrated system for building, managing, and scaling alternatives programs

NEW YORK, Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Aqua, a next-generation alternatives infrastructure solution, today announced the launch of the industry's first turnkey alternative investments platform(TAIP), along with $18.8 million in total funding.

The company raised a $3.8 million seed round backed by Google's AI Fund, Y Combinator, and others, followed by a $15 million Series A led by Arthur Ventures with participation from Alumni Ventures. Aqua plans to use the funding to accelerate business and platform development, expand its engineering and partnership teams, and deepen integrations across custodians and fund sponsors.

Designed to help wealth managers, RIAs, banks, trust companies, and fund sponsors build, manage, and scale institutional-quality alternatives programs, Aqua replaces the disconnected marketplaces, manual workflows, and spreadsheets most firms rely on today.

Aqua brings fund creation, operational workflows, investment lifecycle management, marketplace access, document intelligence, and investor servicing into one unified environment, enabling firms to build their own alternatives strategy and scale it on their terms.

"Demand for alternatives has grown fast, but most firms are still trying to meet client needs with spreadsheets, fragmented processes and manual solutions," said Rohan Marwaha, Co-Founder and CEO at Aqua. "Firms have already transformed the way they manage traditional investments through technology. As access to alternatives becomes increasingly democratized, they need similar infrastructure to build repeatable, scalable alternatives strategies. We built Aqua around the way today's advisors operate, so they can develop customized alternatives programs without having to manage the systems behind them."

The platform reflects a shift underway across the industry. The first phase of growth in alternatives centered on expanding access. The next phase focuses on delivering the scalable infrastructure firms need to manage alternatives successfully. Aqua is the bridge between the two.

"Many firms still think a marketplace is the same thing as an alternatives strategy. It isn't," said David Coyle, Head of Growth at Aqua. "Advisors need more than access to alternatives; they need a repeatable way to educate clients, manage operations, and deliver alternatives with confidence as part of a broader wealth strategy. Aqua is the enablement engine ushering in the next generation of alternative investing."

Aqua's leadership team brings together decades of experience in wealth management and fintech. Before founding Aqua, Rohan Marwaha built solutions across technology and alternative investments for major alternative asset managers, while David Coyle has driven tech adoption at advisory firms for over 25 years. Head of Growth Partnerships Joe Ujobai spent more than 35 years in financial services and technology, with leadership roles in private banking and international expansion. The combined track record shapes how Aqua approaches the alternatives infrastructure problem: not as outsiders building for the industry, but as operators solving challenges from the inside.

Demand is already accelerating for access to Aqua's integrated alternatives solution, with additional partnerships with major firms to be announced in the coming weeks.

To learn more about how Aqua is redefining alternatives infrastructure for wealth management, register to join the upcoming live webinar on September 23rd.

About Aqua
Aqua is an alternatives infrastructure platform built to simplify how alternative investments are built, managed, and scaled, enabling wealth managers, RIAs, banks, trust companies, family offices, and asset managers to run the full alternatives lifecycle through a unified operating platform. By bringing together fund creation, investment lifecycle management, marketplace capabilities, document intelligence, and operational workflows, Aqua helps firms move beyond fragmented point solutions and build alternatives programs they own outright.

CONTACT: Joe Steuter  [email protected] 

SOURCE Aqua