Caruso Expands to the US, Bringing Its AI-Native Fund Administration to Private Market Managers

One of the world's fastest growing AI-native services businesses is launching in North America. Caruso, the fund administrator with more than US$75 billion under administration, names Dallas its North American hub and appoints a US leadership team.

DALLAS, Oct. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Caruso, the AI-native fund administrator for private markets, today announced its expansion into the United States and named Dallas its North American hub. Co-founder and CEO Mark Hurley is leading the US business from Dallas. He is joined by RJ Schulte, CPA, as VP of Fund Administration Services, and Amit Baria as VP of Client Partnerships.

Caruso was founded in Australia and New Zealand in 2023 and now administers more than US$75 billion across more than 950 private funds for more than 100 fund managers. Its assets under administration have nearly quadrupled in a year, from US$20 billion in October 2025.

Investors judge managers on how their funds are run, not just on returns. In CSC's 2025 survey of LPs, 68% said being able to see clearly into a manager's operations matters more to them than its past returns, and 85% had walked away from an investment over operational concerns alone.

Many US managers can't give investors a clear view of their fund operations because they don't have one themselves. As they grow and add funds and investors, they're often relying on spreadsheets and decade-old systems that don't connect to each other and were never built for AI. Many can't even get to their own investor data without asking their administrator for a report and waiting for it. And often, administrators have offshored the work, so a question sent in the afternoon can go unanswered until the next day.

Caruso takes a different approach. All investor information lives on one investor record that the Investor CRM, the Investor Registry (capital accounts) and the manager-branded Investor Portal read directly, so there's no copying data between systems or checking one against another, and every team sees the same numbers. Investors and their advisors get look-through reporting, so they can see the detail behind a position rather than a summary line. Managers and Caruso's fund administrators work in the same Manager Console, so managers see exactly what is being done, by whom, and when.

AI agents do the processing, and people stay in charge. The Fund Admin Agent answers questions, reads investor documents and runs batch processes on instruction. Background Agents work around the clock on applications, redemptions and compliance tasks under each manager's own rules and governing documents, and anything outside those rules is escalated to a person for review. Managers also have full access to their own data. Instead of asking an administrator for a report, they can ask the Fund Admin Agent in plain English, for example which investors haven't yet paid the latest capital call, and get the answer straight away. They can also pull their data through modern APIs and MCP, so their own AI tools can work with it.

"We're removing the admin from fund administration," said Mark Hurley, co-founder and CEO of Caruso. "Managers have put up with errors, slow responses, and fragmented data for too long. The future of fund administration is experienced people directing AI agents, with managers in full control of their data, and investors able to see everything they own. That future is already running for our clients in Australia and New Zealand. We've assembled an experienced US team that knows this market from the inside to bring it here, and I'm in Dallas to lead the expansion."

Caruso is investing in Dallas as the base for its US business, as finance continues to migrate to the city. Services for US clients are delivered by Caruso's own specialists from North America and are never offshored or subcontracted. AI-native delivery is what makes that possible. The fund administrator's job shifts from manual, repetitive processing to directing teams of agents and reviewing their work, so output per person is no longer capped by how fast someone can handle a transaction

"Offshoring has been the industry's answer to labor cost for two decades, and managers have paid for it in poor service, errors and slow turnaround," Hurley said. "AI changes the economics. We can hire experienced people in the US, pay them properly, and have them service clients in their own market, and still run strong margins. I think offshoring in our space is three to five years from being obsolete."

"Caruso is a different kind of fund administrator," said RJ Schulte, VP of Fund Administration Services at Caruso. "I've spent years at administrators that run on someone else's software. When the software can't handle a task, the administrator patches the gaps with spreadsheets and workarounds across disjointed systems. Errors creep in, and the workarounds become a permanent part of the quarter-end close. At Caruso, our fund administration team and the engineers who build the platform work for the same company, in the same system our clients use. When our team finds a gap, our engineers close it rapidly, and the enhancement is rolled out to every client."

Caruso builds the platform alongside the managers it works with. Those clients hold regular working sessions with Caruso's product and engineering teams, and when a manager comes on, the two sides go through its operations together to work out how each process runs on the platform. Everything is built for every manager: if a client needs something, Caruso builds it the way every manager in that segment would need it, which is why a feature one manager asks for can ship to everyone.

"The CFO of a private equity shop told me recently that they've been given a mandate to use AI, but no one has worked out how, and they're worried they're already behind," said Amit Baria, VP of Client Partnerships at Caruso, who is based in the New York metropolitan area. "I hear a version of that in almost every conversation. Their funds run on systems that don't share data, and they don't have the engineers to fix that in-house. They don't need another tool bolted on. They need their investor data, AI agents, and experienced fund administrators working in one place, with a partner who builds it alongside them. That's what we're bringing to US managers."

Caruso serves private markets managers across real estate, private credit, and private equity, from emerging managers building tech-first operations to listed institutional groups modernizing legacy stacks. Every customer licenses the software and decides how much of the fund administration is performed by their team. Managers can run it in-house, outsource it to Caruso's fund administration services team, or a combination of the two, and have the ability to change that mix as they grow without having to switch administrators.

About Caruso

Caruso provides AI-native fund administration for private market managers. Built for real estate, private credit and private equity funds, Caruso replaces fragmented systems and opaque processes with one platform where investor data, the AI agents that act on it, and seasoned experts work together. Founded in Australia and New Zealand in 2023 and operating globally, Caruso now administers more than US$75 billion across more than 950 private funds for more than 100 fund managers.

https://www.getcaruso.com/en-us 

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SOURCE Caruso