Welcome to the September 2021 issue of the Latest News in Financial #AdvisorTech – where we look at the big news, announcements, and underlying trends and developments that are emerging in the world of technology solutions for financial advisors!
This month’s edition kicks off with the big news that Riskalyze has been ‘recapitalized’ with a valuation of more than $300M, as the risk tolerance assessment tool continues to expand its advisor reach – seemingly unimpacted by an explosion of new startup competitors that have failed to make much of a dent in its growing market share – and move into more adjacent components of the advisor tech stack. Yet with increasingly large competitors firing back with their own recent new offerings – from Morningstar’s Risk Score to Orion’s new 3D Risk Profile – and the majority of advisors still ‘apathetic’ and not using any risk tolerance software tools (Riskalyze’s or any other) at all, the question arises as to whether Riskalyze’s new round of capital will be deployed to continue growing its presence in the US, begin to “go global” into new (and less competitive) markets in Europe instead… or adapt its trading platform to move into the hot new space of direct indexing where there are even more dollars currently in flux?
From there, the latest highlights also feature a number of other interesting advisor technology announcements, including:
- RightCapital launches new “dynamic” retirement decumulation tools to model client spending strategies that adapt to the markets
- Veriti crosses $1B of AUM as yet another direct indexing provider shoots off to the races
- American Express partners with BodesWell to come back into the (free) financial planning business 16 years after spinning off Ameriprise
- Altruist hires away the (now-)former Betterment Head of Investing as it expands from RIA custodian to vertically-integrated TAMP
Read the analysis about these announcements in this month’s column, and a discussion of more trends in advisor technology, including:
- OnRamp raises $6M of venture capital to scale its offering of cryptocurrency education (and future crypto-asset-management?) for advisors
- FabricRQ raises a new seed round to compete in ‘institutional grade’ risk analytics even as advisors become less investment-centric
- The T3 Technology conference and Wealthstack both reschedule to 2022 as AdviceTech.LIVE’s virtual event rolls on
- XY Planning Network announces that submissions are open for its latest ‘AdvisorTech Expo’ at XYPN LIVE
And be certain to read to the end, where we have provided an update to our popular “Financial AdvisorTech Solutions Map” as well!
*And for #AdvisorTech companies who want to submit their tech announcements for consideration in future issues, please submit to TechNews@kitces.com!
Leave a Reply