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A former helicopter pilot in the U.S. Navy, Julie Cane formed formed Democracy Investments with several partners and serves as the firm’s CEO. The company sponsors passive ETFs with a strategy Cane hopes can scale to compete with the heavy hitters of Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street.
Devon Drew is rethinking the whole wholesaler business model, rebranding DFD Partners to AssetLink with a mission to “streamline the traditionally cumbersome and friction-filled process of fund discovery and distribution.”
With a handful of patents and $1.2 million seed capital in hand, the company is developing a machine learning program to build a Netflix-like recommendation engine for funds, matching managers, wholesalers and advisors based on preferences and qualities that go beyond financial metrics.
Olivia Eisinger and Apex are on a mission to “enable frictionless investing for every person on the planet,” she said. “That’s the direction that we’re taking the company—and advisory and education is a big part of that.”
Iraklis Kourtidis, CEO and co-founder of Rowboat Advisors, is used to standing out. He was way ahead of the direct indexing boom, building Wealthfront's capabilities and then leaving in 2016 to start his own firm.
Now that the investing world has caught up, he wants to continue to stand out by focusing on performance, speed, tax efficiency and the ability to handle held-away assets.
Ritik Malhotra found rich client experiences and efficiency were two things lacking in most advisor tech. Describing the traditional wealth management model as surprisingly analog given the lucrative nature of the business, Malhotra said no one had yet cracked the combination of technology and human financial advice.
He describes Savvy Advisors as a decentralized, AI-enabled technology platform consisting of three main components: Fully digital client onboarding and account opening; an integrated advisor dashboard with a CRM, financial planning and investment tools, including proprietary direct indexing capabilities, and a digital client portal that allows clients to view and manage their portfolios, track performance, communicate with their advisor, schedule meetings and manage files.
Carrie Nelson founded Atlas Point with the goal of creating an AI-powered platform to help advisors integrate behavioral data while supporting human relationships and bringing clients and advisors closer together. The goal is to recognize the value of emotional intelligence and marry that with AI.
Wealth.com wants to “demystify” the estate planning process for advisors, according to Anne Rhodes. Too often, advisors work with clients at the start of the process, but “hand off” clients to other experts as it progresses. Rhodes stressed that advisors may already work in the estate planning space without even knowing it by, for example, advising clients on beneficiary designations for 401(k)s, among other financial planning basics.
“Only 17% of advisors report feeling very confident in discussing healthcare with their clients,” Christine Simone says. “I think that percentage is actually inflated; and while I don’t think an advisor’s job is supposed to make them experts in healthcare—just like accounting or estate planning—given the right tools they can still be of great help to their clients.”
“I have always believed that regulatory change creates opportunities for disruption,” Brian Thorp says. The SEC's "Ad Rule," implemented in 2021, is that disruption that led Thorp to build Wealthtender.
Alternative investments and private markets are an increasingly important way for RIAs to invest for their clients. But for many RIAs, it’s a daunting area.
Ryan VanGorder thinks his firm, Opto Investments, has the right approach to make it easier for them. Opto uses in-house investment specialists to assess private market opportunities and technology developers that help RIAs handle the “very large workflow” associated with them, including the screening, the documentation and reporting and the capital call management.
