Altruist has raised $169 million in a Series E round that values the RIA custodian at $1.5 billion, according to the firm. The funding round was led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from Granite Capital Management. Existing investors Adams Street Partners and Sound Ventures also participated.
Yoonkee Sull, general partner at ICONIQ Growth, will join Altruist’s board of directors as a result.
This follows a $112 million Series D funding round announced last year and brings Altruist’s total funding to over $450 million.
With more than 3,700 advisors and 2,500 RIA firms on its platform, Altruist is now the third-largest custodian, behind Schwab and Fidelity, by number of RIA customer firms, though not by assets under management. In a statement, Altruist said it has tripled its assets for two straight years and grew its revenue by 550% in 2023.
“It's rare to see a new company in the custodian space nail the fundamentals while carving out a substantial customer base in a market dominated by legacy financial institutions,” Sull said in a statement. “Jason Wenk is a serial entrepreneur who has been pushing the category forward for nearly two decades, and with Altruist, he has built one of the most trusted names with RIAs today.”
Last March, Altruist launched its own self-clearing platform, Altruist Clearing, the final step in becoming a full-service custodian. Just weeks later, it announced plans to acquire SSG, adding more than 1,600 advisors to its platform and giving Altruist close to 10% market share of total RIA firms.
In August, the company announced a move to a hybrid work environment, with about 90% of its employees operating out of offices in Los Angeles, Dallas and New Jersey, and about 10% staying entirely virtual. To accommodate the move, the company said it will more than double its office space in Culver City, Calif., and relocate a large number of staff to those hub cities. It will also focus on hiring staff near those offices.
A few weeks ago, Altruist introduced an updated fee schedule in response to feedback from its advisors. The new pricing is at or lower than legacy custodians, the company said. And in March the firm announced the availability of Altruist Cash, its own internally built cash management offering for advisors and end clients.
Last year, Altruist eliminated the $1 per account per month portfolio accounting fee for advisors who custody with the firm.
