Caruso launched its AI-native fund administration software in North America in October, establishing a hub in Dallas, NZ Herald reported on Thursday.
Co-founder and CEO Mark Hurley moved to Dallas to lead the North American operations alongside RJ Schulte as VP of Fund Administration Services and Amit Baria as VP of Client Partnerships, getcaruso.com reported.
The start-up administers more than US$75 billion across more than 950 private funds for over 100 fund managers, with assets under administration nearly quadrupling from US$20 billion in October 2025, according to getcaruso.com.
“We launched in North America in October, with team members based in Dallas and New York. I have moved to Dallas to lead this growth. We are seeing strong signals we can have a similar impact in the US as we did in Australia,” Hurley told NZ Herald.
Property clients join platform
In February, Caruso signed Centuria Capital Group, which manages more than $20 billion across more than 400 properties in Australia and New Zealand, NZ Herald reported.
“Everything we do at Centuria is in service of our investors, and that extends to the infrastructure behind our fund operations,” Centuria Capital Group CEO Jason Huljich said.
“Caruso gives our investors more transparency and a better experience, while freeing our team to focus on what we do best. AI-native fund administration is going to become the standard globally for companies that do what we do, and Caruso is leading the way,” Huljich told NZ Herald.
Charter Hall Direct, part of the ASX-listed Charter Hall Group, also joined the customer roster, NZ Herald reported.
Revenue and headcount targets
Contracted recurring revenue sits at around $13m, representing a 3.6x increase over the prior year, with the firm targeting more than $30m by the end of next year, Hurley told NZ Herald.
Net revenue retention stands at 113.7% and is increasing month on month as clients add funds and services, Hurley told NZ Herald.
Headcount is approximately 70 and growing rapidly, while all product and engineering remain based in New Zealand, Hurley told NZ Herald.
“The AI built into our product makes our local teams in each region faster and more accurate, which flips the usual economics. Most of our competitors send this work to the Philippines and similar; we don’t need to. We’re bullish on NZ engineering talent and are growing the team,” Hurley told NZ Herald.
Origins at Jasper firm
Caruso originated at Jasper, a real estate private equity firm founded in 2019 by Hurley, software developer Shaw, and Mark Campbell, NZ Herald reported.
“We started to build this internal piece of technology to solve our own problems. We had no intention of creating a business. But we suddenly realised that we were solving a problem for ourselves that actually existed across the industry,” Hurley told NZ Herald.
After fund managers inquired about the onboarding experience, Caruso launched its first client in August 2023, just months after ChatGPT popularized large language models, NZ Herald reported.
“We were very fortunate with the timing of AI for our business. We were young enough to have this modern infrastructure that we can plug AI into easily, but mature enough to have scale and data and users,” Hurley told NZ Herald.
Internal development via Luca
Caruso uses Anthropic’s Claude internally to develop its platform through its own agent, named Luca, which staff query in plain English via Slack, NZ Herald reported.
“Our internal agent Luca, is industry-leading and available to every employee. It answers questions, plans work, writes documents, and builds new software features on its own, with our engineers only reviewing its final output,” Hurley told NZ Herald.
“Improvements that used to take weeks now often go live within hours of a customer asking. We’re releasing new features faster than competitors with engineering teams ten times our size,” Hurley told NZ Herald.
“We’ve been big believers in Mark and Ollie’s vision from inception, and we’re excited to be doubling down on Caruso as they replace legacy solutions with true AI-native software,” GD1 partner Vignesh Kumar told NZ Herald.
“The fund administration industry’s global impact is immense. It touches almost every aspect of people’s lives, from infrastructure like roads and housing to retirement savings. Despite this, the industry still runs on decades-old software. Caruso’s rapid growth to date is just the beginning of what their AI-native platform can unlock for this industry,” Icehouse partner Jack McQuire told NZ Herald.
