A tied agent operates under the license and liability of a regulated investment firm. At substnz, you focus on your investors and mandates — we handle the regulatory framework.
A tied agent (vertraglich gebundener Vermittler) is a person or company that provides investment services under the license and liability of a regulated investment firm. At substnz Capital Partners — a BaFin-supervised investment firm in Hamburg — tied agents are registered in the country where they are established, operate under a MiFID II license passported to 17 other EEA markets, and retain full control over their client relationships. From first call to operational: 7 to 12 weeks where the tied agent is established in Germany, and 10 to 16 weeks where the tied agent is established in another EEA state. Both are best case ranges, and the clock starts once your due diligence documents are complete.
A tied agent (in German: vertraglich gebundener Vermittler) is a natural or legal person who provides investment services on behalf of, and under the full liability of, a licensed investment firm. The concept is defined under MiFID II and allows experienced professionals to broker investments without establishing their own investment firm.
As a tied agent of substnz Capital Partners, you are registered in the country where you are established and operate under our investment firm license. You retain full control over your client relationships and mandates, while substnz provides the regulatory umbrella, compliance infrastructure, and European market access you need.
You are registered in the official tied agent register of the country where you are established — BaFin if that is Germany — and operate under our investment firm license. Full regulatory legitimacy from day one.
Access to 18 European markets through our passported license. Serve professional investors across the EEA from a single regulatory framework.
We handle regulatory reporting, compliance monitoring, AML/KYC processes, and supervisory obligations. You focus on capital raising.
Complimentary access to our fundraising platform: investor CRM, pipeline tracking, virtual data rooms, and invoicing tools.
Keep significantly more of what you generate. Clear fee structure with no hidden costs or opaque revenue-sharing arrangements.
You run your own practice. Choose your mandates, manage your client relationships, and build your business on your terms.
We discuss your background, target markets, and mandate pipeline to understand whether the tied agent model is right for you.
We conduct the required fit-and-proper assessment, set up your compliance framework, and prepare the registration and notifications that apply where you are established.
substnz registers you as a tied agent in the country where you are established. If that is Germany, the register is BaFin’s. You appear in the public register and can begin operating.
You start working with your investors. We provide ongoing compliance support, regulatory updates, and platform access.
The tied agent model is designed for experienced placement professionals who want to operate independently in the European alternative investments market. Whether you are an individual with deep investor relationships or a small team looking for a regulated home, substnz provides the framework.
Typical tied agents at substnz have backgrounds in placement agency, fund distribution, investor relations, or wealth management. They work with institutional investors, family offices, and professional clients across asset classes like real estate, infrastructure, private equity, venture capital, and private credit.
The substnz programme is not the right fit for firms that want their own authorisation for strategic reasons, that need to execute transactions or hold client assets, or that focus on retail distribution. The tied agent regime itself is broader. We have scoped our programme to professional and institutional investors, and that is a business decision on our side, not a limit of the regime.
No. As a tied agent, you operate under the license of substnz Capital Partners. You do not need to establish your own investment firm or obtain your own BaFin license.
Through our MiFID II passported license, you can serve professional investors across 18 European Economic Area markets, including Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Nordics.
Our focus is alternative investments. Real estate, infrastructure, private equity, venture capital, private credit, secondaries, co-investments. We can also cover UCITS distribution to professional clients, and some of our tied agents do, but alternatives are what the platform is built around. If your investors qualify as professional clients under MiFID II, we support the placement.
From first call to operational: 7 to 12 weeks where the tied agent is established in Germany, and 10 to 16 weeks where the tied agent is established in another EEA state. Both are best case ranges, and the clock starts once your due diligence documents are complete.
Absolutely. Your client relationships remain yours. The tied agent model is specifically designed to let you maintain full control over your investor network and mandate pipeline.
No. Under MiFID II a tied agent acts for one investment firm only, for the services covered by the arrangement. This is a feature of the regime, not a substnz term. It does not stop you from working with several fund managers within your agreed scope.
Get in touch to discuss how the tied agent model can work for your practice.