Opto Investments (“Opto”), a private markets outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) for wealth management firms, family offices and institutional investors, today announced the appointments of Justin Mills, CFA, as Principal Product Manager and Rachel Hallock as Head of Design. Their work will help make Opto’s platform simpler, faster and more personalized as advisors and CIOs scale their private markets offerings.

Opto’s experienced investment management team helps firms build, execute, and service private markets programs. As alternative investments have become a core component of client portfolios, allocators are taking on the complexity that comes with them, from due diligence to ongoing reporting. With these hires, the firm is advancing a platform that helps users spend less time on manual work and more time on the investment decisions that matter to their clients.

Mills will lead efforts to streamline and advance Opto’s technology products. His first priority is extending the core platform to make onboarding new clients easier and more tailored to their specific requirements. He brings decades of experience in technology and alternative investments, beginning with 15 years at Quellos Capital Management, later acquired by BlackRock. There, he owned the risk, research and quantitative analytics products that supported more than $80 billion in hedge fund, private equity and real assets. He went on to build product and program teams at Smartsheet during its high-growth years.

Hallock will lead design across Opto’s platform, from the app CIOs and advisors use to bring clients into private markets to the tools Opto’s own team runs on. She brings more than 14 years of experience in product design and financial technology, beginning with five years at DesignMap. She went on to Carta, where as Director of Product Design, she led design for its Fund Administration portfolio as it scaled from 300 firms to 4,000.

“Justin has spent years building technology for investment firms and deeply understands the complexity of getting a client from interested to invested,” said Dan Piehler, Head of Product at Opto. “Rachel has designed fund software used by thousands of firms and knows how to make complex financial information feel simple. Together, they’ll help our partners launch new programs faster, onboard clients with less friction, and make private investments as easy to follow as anything else in a client’s portfolio.”

“We’re bringing on senior, seasoned talent to take advantage of the growth that’s ahead of us,” said Ryan VanGorder, CEO of Opto. “Firms come to Opto for investment experience backed by technology that handles the operational work. Justin and Rachel will help advisors and CIOs act with confidence on private markets opportunities for their clients, which has been our mission since day one.”

For advisors and investors interested in learning more about Opto, please visit optoinvest.com.

About Opto Investments

Opto is engineering the future of private markets, offering the solution for allocators to efficiently build, execute, and service white-labeled private investment vehicles – from a single-asset feeder to a diversified fund program.

Opto’s technology was created by exceptional engineers and seasoned private markets operators who saw a broken investment process and built a better one. The platform streamlines the entire private markets lifecycle, with the scope and depth of Opto’s partnership reflecting its clients’ needs.

Founded by Joe Lonsdale, the entrepreneur behind Palantir and Addepar, and backed by investors including 8VC and Michael Dell’s DFO Management, Opto set out to forge a business free from the faulty incentives on which private markets investing is built. Opto is not compensated by investment managers to offer their products, which means principles, not placement fees, drive its guidance.

Opto automates the operational work that sits between an investment decision and capital deployment, meaning wealth management teams spend less time on paperwork and more time with clients.

For additional information, please visit our website and LinkedIn.

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