Hedge funds move fast — chasing opportunities, navigating volatility, and making decisions in the blink of an eye.
But building the technology that helps them do all that requires a different rhythm. It demands patience, curiosity, and a deep understanding of what users truly need.
In this post, I’ll share how our user-driven philosophy shapes the way we develop Eze Eclipse to empower hedge funds to stay focused on what they do best: Uncovering opportunities and generating alpha.
Experience Drives Intentional Innovation
When we developed Eclipse, we had the rare opportunity to start fresh — to build something from the ground up that could adapt and thrive in an ever-evolving marketplace.
To achieve this, we assembled a team with deep domain expertise across investment products and decades of intellectual property from solutions like Eze OMS, Geneva, and others. That collective knowledge became the foundation for a platform designed to anticipate what hedge funds need next.
Through our managed service offering, we often operate parts of the software on our clients’ behalf, using the very same tools we’ve built. By acting as an extension of our clients’ teams and essentially “eating our own cooking,” we gain firsthand insight into how our technology is used in real-world scenarios.
This collaboration creates a virtuous cycle: Our experience using the platform directly informs how we enhance it, strengthening both the product and the way we serve our clients.
But expertise alone isn’t enough. What truly drives innovation at SS&C Advent is how closely we listen to our users. We combine their feedback with our technical insight to design enhancements that deliver lasting, practical value.
It’s a continuous cycle: We build, deliver, listen, refine, and improve. Each iteration strengthens and better aligns the platform with how our users work every day.
That doesn’t mean our innovation is limited to refinement. We’re also exploring more transformative opportunities, such as integrating AI to enhance our operational efficiency and accelerate the delivery of our product enhancements.
In addition, AI is expanding our marketplace with new capabilities that unlock even greater flexibility for users.
Still, every innovation begins with the same principle: It must have real value for our users.
We continually monitor market developments, keeping a close eye on industry trends and emerging ideas. But our view of innovation extends beyond market trends to focus on meaningful, user-driven progress — technology that delivers real value to the firms we serve.
From Robust Capabilities Under the Hood to a Seamless On-screen Experience
Our knowledge of our users and their hedge fund operations runs deep; it has to. Because every day, we make decisions that shape how our users experience Eclipse, which directly impacts their operations.
We don’t take that responsibility lightly.
Eclipse was designed to be intuitive, to present everything in a clear, logical way that mirrors how users think and work.
However, beneath the surface, Eclipse delivers deep functional power: From allocations and compliance to performance calculations and reporting.
Our job is to connect those two worlds — the sophisticated infrastructure that powers our solutions and the seamless experience on the screen. Doing that well requires a detailed understanding of how our customers work, the challenges they face, and the opportunities technology can unlock.
That means asking questions. A lot of them.
What details might a user want to access? If we give them that view, what’s the next thing they’ll want to see? To generate alpha, will they need to drill deeper, or will they immediately need to take action?
It also means continuously evaluating the experience itself.
What belongs on the screen? Where can we reduce clicks? What should appear next, and is it easy to find?
Asking and answering these questions has enabled us to build a platform where sophisticated functionality lives “under the hood” yet remains accessible, allowing users to achieve their best outcomes.
Innovating Where the Market Meets Customer Needs
Because we are passionate about our customers’ success, we make it our mission to understand the market inside and out.
We know this industry moves fast, and with that speed comes the temptation to innovate just as quickly.
However, from the outset, our intentional approach has meant that we innovate to meet the real-world needs of our users for today while creating something that will stand the test of time.
We designed Eclipse with a cloud-native microservices architecture that evolves as quickly as our users do. This foundation enables the seamless addition of new capabilities, ensuring that technology never becomes a bottleneck.
With this intentional approach to innovation, our users have tools that meet their needs today while staying ready for whatever comes next.
For instance, today, as investor and allocator scrutiny has intensified, hedge funds are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the institutional rigor and technical sophistication required for long-term success.
Eclipse helps them do exactly that.
With built-in capabilities like pre-trade compliance and shadow NAVs, hedge fund managers can meet allocator expectations, scale with confidence, and focus on what matters most: Delivering results.
We’re also seeing a growing emphasis on data accessibility. Users want a single, consolidated source of truth, and they want to be able to reach it from anywhere: The office, a mobile device, or a web browser.
To provide that level of access, we developed Eclipse as a SaaS-based platform that empowers users to do business where and when they choose.
And, by centralizing data in one place, Eclipse ensures users have consistent insights, reporting and visibility regardless of how users access the system.
Through continuous collaboration with our customers, we ensure Eclipse evolves alongside them, supporting hedge funds’ growth while preparing them for the demands of the future.
Purposeful Innovation: Keeping You a Step Ahead
In a fast-moving industry like fintech, it’s easy to equate innovation with speed or disruption. But at SS&C Advent, we believe innovation should be purposeful, reliable, and rooted in experience.
Eclipse reflects that belief. Every enhancement, every design choice, and every new capability is shaped by our understanding of our clients’ goals and guided by their feedback.
By pairing deep expertise with a customer-obsessed mindset, we’re not just keeping pace with the market; we’re helping our users stay a step ahead, supported by technology they can trust to grow with them.
Because when innovation is intentional, it becomes more than a new feature or release. It becomes progress — for us, and for every hedge fund we serve.
Get in touch to learn what customer-obsessed innovation can mean for your hedge fund.
