Sliced Investing has broadened its online alternative investments platform with this week’s launch of a program focused on registered investment advisors.

The program, called Sliced Institutional, enables advisors to access more than 40 private offerings from hedge funds and private-equity funds.

“What we’re trying to build is something like an exchange for alternative investments that make it almost as easy as investing in a stock or bond on E*TRADE,” says Mike Furlong, CEO and co-founder of Sliced. “An advisor can chose a fund to invest in, select a client they want to invest on behalf of, and just make the investment versus the traditional process that entails knowing the right people to gain access to a fund and filling out the various forms that come with private investments.”

Sliced says its new platform automates all of the manual processes typically associated with private fund investing such as subscription document signing, reporting, custodial integrations and the integration of customer relationship management software.

Based in San Francisco and started last summer by Furlong and Akhil Lodha, both former Citigroup traders, Sliced aims to leverage the operational efficiencies of the Internet to make alternative investments in hedge funds and private-equity funds more accessible and affordable to the masses––albeit accredited investors among the masses who have earned more than $200,000 in each of the prior two years or have a liquid net worth exceeding $1 million. (And, in the case of some funds, qualified purchasers with more than $5 million in investments).

In addition to its new RIA-focused offering, the company operates an existing platform for high-net-worth investors. Sliced has two different product structures that apply to both platforms: either invest directly into a hedge fund or private-equity fund, or invest via pooled assets through a feeder fund providing access to a large fund with substantially greater investment minimums than the $10,000 minimum required by both of Sliced’s platforms.

The name “Sliced” references the company’s goal to pare down the high minimum investments associated with hedge fund and private-equity investments.

The program for high-net-worth investors offers 11 fund options, or roughly one-quarter less than the RIA-focused program.

“If the investment is made directly into a manager, we charge no fee on top; we act as a broker and get paid a commission by the hedge fund manager,” Furlong says. (Investors still pay the fees charged by the funds they're investing in.)

Sliced charges 50 to 100 basis points for investing through the feeder funds, and investors pay additional fees charged by the underlying funds.

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