It is only hump day, and while the West may be baking in extreme heat and drought, there is no shortage of venture capital flowing. So far this week, three wealth management technology firms have announced major funding rounds, all of them based in the Silicon Valley/San Francisco area.
Wednesday, small- to midsize business retirement plan provider Guideline announced a massive Series E funding round of $200 million. This round was led by General Atlantic but existing investors, including Generation Investment Management, Greyhound Capital, Felicis Ventures and Propel Ventures, also participated. This follows on a Series D raise of $85 million in July 2020. The firm now manages $4.8 billion in retirement assets from more than 21,000 small and midsize businesses, according to an announcement.
On Tuesday, Addepar announced it had raised another $150 million Series F financing round from D1 Capital Partners, giving it a premoney valuation of $2 billion. The wealth management technology provider and illiquid, alternatives aggregator had just announced its Series E raise of $117 million in November. It also announced that it had over $2.7 trillion in client assets on its platform (it hit $2 trillion in August).
Also, on Wednesday came word that cryptocurrency index fund manager Bitwise Asset Management had raised a $70 million Series B round, bringing its total money raised to over $500 million. This latest round was led by Elad Gil and Electric Capital but was joined by many former and current Silicon Valley executives, including former Wealthfront CEO Adam Nash, as well as many other individual investors, including Bridgewater CEO David McCormick and former Federal Reserve Gov. Kevin Warsh.
Putting the Funding to Use
In Guideline’s case, the funding will go toward expanding its people and office footprint. The company has plans to grow by a third in head count by year’s end and is opening a new office in San Diego (it already has offices in San Mateo, Calif.; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Maine.
With its latest round, Addepar will continue to expand both its team and platform. Prateek Bhide, principal at D1 Capital Partners, hinted that Addepar had an “opportunity” to address an international need for wealth management technology, citing the “$225 trillion in investable assets” available around the world.
Bitwise, in its own announcement, pointed to using proceeds from its latest funding to “strengthen its balance sheet and accelerate the national buildout of its organization, team and product suite.” The firm stated it is now working with more than 200 advisory firms and had surpassed $1.2 billion in AUM on its platform at the end of the first quarter.
