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Risk Transfer Infrastructure for Private Markets

Forward Liquidity
for Private Market
Investors.

A fixed income-derived framework to decode private market investments — enabling transparent pricing, risk transfer, and active portfolio management without moving the underlying assets. LPs shouldn't be reactive to liquidity events. XTAL gives you the forward curve.

USPTO Patent US 8,386,356
JP Patent 6014124
SG Patent 194993
JPM Peer Reviewed
The Structural Problem

Private markets were built
for patience. Not for proactive
LP management. We change this.

LPs today manage multi-asset portfolios with sophisticated risk frameworks — yet private fund allocations remain a blind spot: opaque, illiquid, and measured with tools designed for a different era.

I

IRR is not time-weighted

The standard performance metric assumes interim distributions are reinvested at the IRR itself — a circular, unrealistic assumption that prevents meaningful cross-asset comparison.

II

No aggregation-consistent benchmark

IRR and PME-based indices cannot be added or linked across funds and periods without distortion. There is no structurally valid index methodology for private capital.

III

Reactive liquidity management

Without a forward yield curve for private markets, LPs react to distributions and capital calls rather than plan. Timing and reinvestment risk compound silently.

The XTAL Approach

A fixed income-derived framework
to decode private market investments.

Liquidity in private markets is not a gate to wait at — it is a horizon to navigate toward. XTAL gives LPs the forward curve they need to plan proactively, allocate with precision, and transfer risk on their own terms.

XTAL Strategies — Investment Philosophy

XTAL applies Macaulay duration to private fund contributions, distributions, and NAVs — producing a forward yield extracted from risk-free equivalent bullet representations of each fund's cash flows. The result is a term structure of expected returns: a yield curve for private markets.

Like fixed income, DARC yields can be transferred along the term structure, aggregated consistently in present-value space, and replicated in investable instruments — recorded daily. No reinvestment assumption. No circularity.

Core Return (Forward Yield)
A compounded forward yield over the net duration interval — the constant annualised rate at which the contribution bullet must grow to equal the distribution bullet. Free of reinvestment circularity.
Notional-Preserving DARC
Extends the forward yield to cover the full commitment — including undrawn capital treated as a synthetic risk-free position. Enables fair comparison across funds with different pacing.
Time Transfer & Aggregation
DARC yields can be transferred to any common horizon and aggregated in present-value space — the structural requirement for index construction that no existing private capital measure satisfies.
The Technology

DARC — Duration Adjusted
Return on Capital

USPTO Patent US 8,386,356 B2
JP Patent No. 6014124
SG Patent No. 194993
Journal of Portfolio Management — Peer Reviewed

DARC operates within the arbitrage-free term structure theory of Heath, Jarrow and Morton. It uses discount-based Macaulay duration to create equivalent bullet representations of each fund's scattered cash flows — one for contributions, one for distributions — and extracts the forward yield over the interval between them.

The framework is explicitly non-root in formulation: no IRR-style equation to solve, no reinvestment assumption, no circularity. It is modular, extensible, and structurally consistent with multi-asset performance frameworks.

01

Risk-Neutral Yield Extraction

DARC discounts using an exogenous risk-free curve — not its own rate. This decouples performance measurement from reinvestment assumptions entirely and enables arbitrage-free time transfer along the term structure.

02

PV-Space Aggregation

Unlike IRR or PME, DARC is aggregation-consistent in present-value space. The aggregated DARC is derived from pooled bullets, not from averaging fund rates — satisfying the structural requirement for index construction.

03

Daily NAV Reconciliation

The duration framework allows statistical estimation of expected NAVs and probabilistic adjustment of reported figures — enabling daily forward-looking risk monitoring without discarding accounting data.

Platforms & Tools

One coherent risk transfer language
and infrastructure for private markets.

From analytics and benchmarking to value navigation and trading — all built on DARC, giving LPs a consistent, connected view across the full private allocation lifecycle.

Research & Insights

Publications from XTAL Strategies.

Working Paper · SSRN 2026

DARC: Enabling Risk-Neutrality, Time Transferability and Notional-Consistent Aggregation of Private Capital Returns

Establishes three foundational properties of DARC: arbitrage-free yield transfer along the term structure; notional preservation via undrawn commitment as a synthetic risk-free position; and aggregation-consistency in present-value space — the structural requirement for private capital index construction.

Contact

Work with XTAL.

XTAL works with institutional LPs, sell-side and buy-side firms, and financial intermediaries globally. Offices in London and Milan.

XTAL Strategies Srl is registered in the Innovative SMEs section of the Italian Business Register. XTAL Markets Limited is incorporated in England and Wales.

Send an Enquiry
XTAL Strategies Srl — VAT nr. 08766171006, REA MI-1905810.
XTAL Markets Limited — registered in England and Wales, nr. 11742387.