CAIS Review 2026: Feeder Funds, Fees and What Filings Show

What CAIS is, according to its own filings

“CAIS” is a brand, not one regulated company. The filings show a parent and three layers, and keeping them apart is the first step of any check.

The brochure states who the customer is: the platform is “made available exclusively to financial intermediaries”, namely SEC-registered advisers, broker-dealers, family offices and banks and trust companies, and only to entities that meet FINRA Rule 4512(c)'s definition of an institutional account. CAIS Capital's Form CRS says the same in other words and adds that it does not open or hold accounts for you: products are held at your own custodian. If a fund is offered to you “on CAIS”, the adviser who offers it is the member, not you.

The Form D side shows how the pieces fit. The BrokerCheck report lists, among the broker-dealer's six types of business, selling interests in private fund conduits sponsored and operated by Capital Integration Systems LLC, and the brochure says CAIS Advisors provides no advisory services to those conduits. In other words, the sponsor of the feeder conduits is the platform's parent, while the adviser entity with the Form ADV is a different company. Our comparison of iCapital, CAIS, Moonfare and Yieldstreet, iCapital vs CAIS vs Moonfare vs Yieldstreet, sets out the same structure side by side.

The feeder census: 120 CAIS-named funds on EDGAR

We pulled the EDGAR entity list for the name “CAIS”, kept the 120 entities whose names start with CAIS (or CSME) and that have filed at least one Form D or D/A, and read the latest filing of each. Their accession numbers are in the download. Our count is one entity higher than the 119 in the October 12, 2026 comparison, a difference in how names were matched. The totals are close: $4.59 billion and 10,094 investors then, $4.59 billion and 10,112 now.

Three readings from the census that a platform's own page will not give you:

• One family dominates. Six “CAIS Millennium” entities report $1,522,666,167 sold to 4,175 investors, which is 33.2% of the money and 41.3% of the investor positions (our arithmetic). The largest, CAIS Millennium USA LLC, reports $771,176,552 sold to 1,778 investors in a Form D/A of June 7, 2022.
• The newer funds are larger tickets. Across the 117 entities that report sales, the money sold divided by the investor positions is $454,092 (our arithmetic). The three “CAIS Private Equity Core” funds (I, II and III) report $488,280,000 from 394 investors, about $1.24 million each.
• Most Forms D are old. An amendment is needed only while an offering continues (our reading), so a 2022 date means no later report of sales, not that a fund has closed. The five June 2026 filings are the only recent ones.

New entities by year of first Form D

All 21 entities in the 2011 group are hedge fund feeders, with names such as Millennium, Paulson, Third Point and Highbridge. New entities have appeared every year since 2018, with 21 in 2022 and 16 in 2025 and 2026 combined (our count).

The twelve largest by amount sold

If your adviser names one of these, the CIK takes you straight to its filing history on EDGAR. CAIS also has three Apollo Aligned Alternatives feeders (CAIS Apollo Aligned Alternatives Fund LLC, its (TE) and its (1099) versions), which report $62,755,000 sold to 86 investors in Forms D of December 2, 2022 (our sum); our Apollo Aligned Alternatives page lists the feeders of that fund across platforms.

Who is paid on the sale

Of the 120 entities, 33 name at least one sales compensation recipient in their latest Form D. The most frequent are USCA Securities LLC (22 funds), Jefferies LLC (18) and HighTower Securities, LLC (18). None of the 120 names CAIS Capital itself as a recipient. That does not show that CAIS Capital is unpaid: Form CRS says it “sometimes” receives placement agency, introducer or marketing fees, and the brochure says CAIS Capital generally receives compensation paid by the investment managers of funds that are facilitated through the platform.

Fees: what CAIS publishes and what it does not

Two documents show a CAIS fee in numbers. Neither is for the feeder funds most readers are offered.

The brochure adds that CAIS Advisors “may enter into side letter arrangements” in which investors get preferential terms such as reduced management fees, so two investors in the same fund can pay different rates.

The one fee table: the CAIS Sports, Media and Entertainment Fund

The fund's prospectus (Form 486BPOS of July 28, 2026) is a registered closed-end fund, the successor to a private partnership of the same name that held $160,422,301 of gross assets in the Form ADV. It is open to accredited investors with a $25,000 minimum for Class A and Class D and $1,000,000 for Class I and Class S. Its fee table:

On the smallest ticket the prospectus allows, $25,000, the after-waiver total is $1,032.50 a year in Class A and $882.50 in Class D; before the waiver, $1,072.50 and $922.50 (our arithmetic). On $100,000 it is $4,130 and $3,530. Only 0.95% of that goes to CAIS Advisors as management fee: in Class A, 1.58% is the cost of the funds underneath, 0.85% goes to distribution and servicing and 0.91% to other expenses. The prospectus also says liquidity comes only from periodic tender offers, which are not guaranteed; the adviser intends to recommend semi-annual offers of generally up to 5% of net asset value, and shares repurchased inside a year carry a 2.00% early repurchase fee.

What a feeder costs

No CAIS filing we read states the platform fee on a feeder fund. The only public number we found is press, not a filing: Bloomberg reported on June 20, 2024, citing people familiar with the matter, that CAIS “is cutting fees to as low as 0.05% for feeder funds” from as much as 0.20%, depending on each fund's complexity and assets, and applying the new structure to new funds. On $100,000 that is $50 to $200 a year (our arithmetic), reported by the press, not confirmed by CAIS, which declined to comment. The manager's own fee and carry sit on top and are set by the underlying fund. For comparison, iCapital's Form ADV brochure states a 0.10% to 1.25% fee range for its access funds; see our iCapital review.

The regulatory record

We found no SEC or FINRA action naming CAIS Advisors or CAIS Capital in the records above as of November 13, 2026. A web search for orders or lawsuits naming CAIS Capital or Capital Integration Systems returned none, which is not proof that none exist. Because Form CRS reports history at the level of individual financial professionals, check the person who sells you a fund by name on BrokerCheck.

The conflicts the brochure discloses

• Owners who also sponsor funds. The brochure says financial institutions own non-controlling interests in Capital Integration Systems LLC and may be general partners, sponsors or issuers of funds that CAIS Advisors allocates to. Series C investments of $340 million (January 2022, from Apollo Global Management, Motive Partners and Franklin Templeton Investments) and $100 million (April 2022, from Reverence Capital Partners) are listed, and an entity affiliated with Eldridge holds two of nine board seats.
• A closed menu for model portfolios. CAIS Advisors says it may build models exclusively from funds on the platform “even if there may be a similar fund with a higher rating, lower fees, and expenses, or substantially better performance.”
• Placement fees on model-driven buys. CAIS Capital generally receives compensation paid by fund managers when a platform user subscribes, including through a model portfolio.
• Shared staff. Key persons serve CAIS Advisors, CAIS Capital and the parent at once, and the brochure says personnel are ultimately employed by Capital Integration Systems LLC.
• Proprietary products. Form CRS says some products on the portal are proprietary products established by CAIS affiliates, with additional revenue for them.

Who holds the money and what you receive

The brochure says UMB Bank, N.A. is custodian of the two private funds, that the funds are audited annually and that audited statements go to investors within 120 days of the fiscal year end. Investors receive statements from the fund administrator monthly or quarterly. Because CAIS or an affiliate is the general partner of those funds, CAIS Advisors is treated as having custody under the SEC's custody rule. For the feeder funds, the custodian, administrator and audit timetable are in the offering documents that members see; none is in a filing we read, so ask for them (see below).

CAIS vs iCapital in one table

Both firms sell private funds to advisers through feeder vehicles. The filings describe different scales and different public disclosure. Figures for iCapital are from our iCapital review (October 12, 2026); the full side-by-side with Moonfare and Yieldstreet is in our platform comparison.

The two figures that are not like for like are the Form ADV ones: iCapital Advisors reports the assets of the funds it manages, while CAIS Advisors' $225.3 million covers only its two private funds and one registered fund. The CAIS Form ADV does not report the volume of the platform.

What a reader offered a CAIS fund can do with this

1. Ask for the exact entity name and CIK. Open its Form D history at SEC EDGAR. A fund whose last filing is from 2022 may still be taking money; ask what the fund has raised and when it closes.
2. Ask for the all-in fee in writing: the CAIS platform fee on your share class, the underlying manager's fee and carry, administrator and custodian costs, and your own adviser's fee on top. The platform fee is not in any filing we read.
3. Ask how your adviser is paid on this purchase. The brochure says CAIS Capital generally receives fees from fund managers; ask whether any of it reaches your adviser.
4. Ask what the closing date, capital call terms and exit options are before signing, and what share of your portfolio the position will be.
5. Check your adviser's representative on BrokerCheck by name, since Form CRS reports disciplinary history at the level of individuals.
6. Compare routes. Our private equity guide explains the options, and our qualified purchaser vs accredited investor guide explains why 119 of 120 CAIS-named funds require the higher bar.

A matched adviser may also use CAIS; ask how they are paid. For the tax treatment of a K-1 or the legal terms of a partnership agreement, a CPA or an attorney is the right person.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: SEC EDGAR company search for “cais” and the latest Form D or D/A of each of 120 CAIS-named entities (fetched November 13, 2026; accession numbers in the CSV); IAPD firm records and Form ADV Part 1A of CAIS Advisors LLC (CRD 317466, filed June 26, 2026); CAIS Advisors LLC Form ADV Part 2A brochure dated March 27, 2026 (IAPD brochure version 1029969); FINRA BrokerCheck report for CAIS Capital LLC (CRD 154512) and its Form CRS dated April 7, 2022; CAIS Sports, Media and Entertainment Fund Form 486BPOS prospectus dated July 28, 2026 (accession 0001580642-26-004658); Bloomberg News report “CAIS Cuts Fees, Seeking To ‘Democratize' Alternative Investments,” June 20, 2024, as published by Financial Advisor Magazine. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.