These are generally the leanest weeks of the year for wealthtech news, yet this week in Advisor Tech Talk we have a nice roundup of impactful headlines.
I feel like a lot of the world has had its eyes on Los Angeles this week with the ongoing wildfires stealing headlines from the death of a former U.S. president and the transition between two administrations with very different philosophies on how the government should be operated and the direction of the country’s future. Those are all huge stories.
While the big national news is turning heads, and technology seems to always be on the march, a lot is happening in wealth management itself. For example, Cerity Partners added $4.1 billion with the acquisition of Prio Wealth. Creative Planning added another $1.3 billion with Wisconsin-based Kowal Investment Group.
That’s not all. EP Wealth added $1.1 billion Michigan-based Executive Wealth Management. Merit Financial Advisors added $739 million Harrisburg, Pa.-area Zimmermann Investment Management & Planning. Sanctuary Wealth added $700 million AUM Hillguard Wealth Management.
Mercer, Kestra, Cetera, Wealth Enhancement Group, Osaic, MAI also announced that they were adding new assets. Capital Advantage entered a partnership to offer wealth management services to Kaiser Permanente employees, while Perigon Wealth Management opened a custodial relationship with Goldman Sachs. Snowden Lane used some of its more than $80 million in 2024 revenue as it bought out one of its equity partners and provided a payout to its employee ownership.
Carson Group acquired Taylor Financial Group and announced plans to use the acquisition to launch deeper tax planning services for its advisors to offer to clients, while Private Advisor Group and Dynasty Financial Partners beefed up advisor transition and support capabilities with key hires.
Savvy Wealth surpassed the $1 billion AUM mark with the addition of four more advisors. Key Bank and Synovus hired into their family office segments serving ultra-high-net-worth households, while Focus Financial Partners selected Cardinal Point, a cross-border Canadian wealth management firm, as its fifth hub firm.
Wealthtech also had some big news this week, as you’ll see below in announcements from the likes of Orion, Morningstar and Edward Jones.
Got all that?
Keep in mind that we’re just scraping the surface here—more stories always tumble out when enterprising journalists shake the tree. However, if that’s what just one early January week had in store for wealth management, we have great expectations for 2025 as a whole.
Take a deep breath, we’re just getting to our wealthtech headlines. Are you ready?
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Edward Jones
Edward Jones has created Edward Jones Ventures, a new capability designed to support innovation through venture investing. Edward Jones Ventures identifies new ideas, opportunities and emerging technologies – prioritizing the viability of ideas that can meet client needs and serve new client segments.
Edward Jones Ventures is focused on identifying external opportunities and solutions, while keeping the firm’s core teams focused on business priorities. The team is equipped to conduct research, create prototypes and advance ideas by making investments, incubating new businesses and executing pilots.
A sample of Edward Jones Ventures’ portfolio includes Porch Software, working with Edward Jones to expand access to important insurance products to improve client security by leveraging an industry-leading digital life platform from Porch Software, and to co-create an annuities platform that reduces manual processes, connects data, provides visibility and expands product availability for financial advisors. Waterlily, a new company making long-term care planning easier by using AI to project future care needs and help people build personalized plans to protect their futures. A previously announced investment in Vanilla, an Estate Advisory Platform built by financial advisors and estate professionals to help wealth management firms deliver a holistic, modern estate planning experience to their clients. A previously announced investment in Goalsetter, a spending, saving, wealth building and financial education platform designed to provide financial education for the whole family.
InvestCloud
InvestCloud, a global leader in wealth technology and First American Bank (FAB), a regional financial institution with $7 billion in assets under management and 61 locations across Illinois, Wisconsin, and Florida, announced a strategic partnership to modernize FAB’s digital wealth management platform. This collaboration aims to significantly enhance client engagement by providing clients, prospects, wealth advisors, and relationship managers with a unified technology platform offering tailored insights and comprehensive support.
As part of this initiative, FAB is adopting a suite of innovative products designed to optimize the digital experience, including InvestCloud’s Client Experience, Prospect Experience, and Advisor Experience. Currently operating on a technology stack with multiple systems, FAB recognized the need to provide its clients and advisors with a unified and modern platform. Integrating with InvestCloud will transform the digital experience by consolidating investment data, reporting, and documents into one intuitive experience. The new platform will feature connected technology, making it mobile-friendly and allowing clients to engage with their financial information anytime, anywhere.
FAB’s decision to modernize its wealth management platform reflects its commitment to investing in digital experiences that resonate with its advisors and clients. This strategic move underscores the bank’s dedication to enhancing customer engagement and ensures clients benefit from modern technology and innovative solutions. By delivering on a seamless and intuitive interface, FAB aims to meet the evolving needs of its clientele, fostering deeper relationships and encouraging a more personalized approach to wealth management. Such modernization positions FAB as a leader in the financial services industry and aligns with its goal of delivering exceptional value to its customers with inspired experiences.
Mili
Mili, AI meeting documentation platform for wealth management firms, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Chiratae and BoldCap, with participation from Sparrow Capital, SFMG Wealth Advisors, Gregg Fisher (Quent Capital), and Better Capital.
The U.S. wealth management industry stands at a historic inflection point, with $124 trillion in assets transferring to younger generations through 2048. Today 300,000+ financial advisors spend 60% of their time on administrative tasks instead of client relationships. Mili’s invisible AI assistant tackles this challenge by automating meeting documentation, saving advisors over 6 hours weekly – equivalent to gaining back 1-2 months annually.
Mili works seamlessly across virtual platforms (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams), phone calls, and in-person meetings. Each firm gets customizable templates and firm-specific rubrics that adapt to their unique workflows. Built on SOC 2-certified infrastructure, it features deep integrations with major wealth platforms including Salesforce, Wealthbox, Practifi, and Salentica.
Morningstar
Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment insights, today introduced Direct Advisory Suite, a modern software application for financial advisors and investment professionals. The comprehensive application streamlines key tasks such as conducting research, building and analyzing portfolios, and generating client proposals. Direct Advisory Suite is built on the foundation of the Direct Platform and takes full advantage of the comprehensive capabilities across Morningstar Data+Analytics.
Direct Advisory Suite expands the capabilities of the current Advisor Workstation application, combining a more intuitive interface with enhanced features for a simplified advisor experience. It is designed to improve workflows and efficiency, empowering advisors to more effectively engage with clients and deliver greater value.
Direct Advisory Suite is the advisor application for the Direct Platform, Morningstar’s unified foundation of data, analytics, and research that supports its enterprise solutions. The Direct Platform is designed to enhance connectivity and information flow across Morningstar’s offerings, including data feeds, APIs, and software. With the addition of Direct Advisory Suite into the Direct Platform, Morningstar’s enterprise clients benefit from more efficient workflows—such as creating investment products or models and seamlessly delivering them to advisor distribution channels through Direct Advisory Suite. For more information on the Direct Platform, click here.
Orion
Orion, the premier provider of transformative wealthtech solutions for financial advisors and the enterprise firms that serve them, is pleased to announce the appointment of Arun Anur as Chief Operating Officer, effective December 9, 2024. In this role, Arun has responsibility for Orion’s client experience delivery, including service, operations, data reconciliation and onboarding.
Bringing over 30 years of experience in the financial services and software as a service industries, Arun is a highly experienced global services, consulting and customer support executive leader. He most recently served as Chief Operating Officer for Envestnet | Yodlee. Earlier in his career, Arun held technology consulting leadership roles at Oracle for more than a decade. Arun holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from Kansas State University and a Bachelor of Engineering in Industrial and Production Engineering from BMSCE, India.
Pontera
Pontera™, the fintech company helping retirement savers receive 401(k) account management from their chosen financial advisor, and Hightower Advisors, one of the country’s leading RIAs, are collaborating to help individuals maximize their retirement savings.
By incorporating Pontera’s client-permissioned technology, Hightower advisors can manage client 401(k)s in keeping with their comprehensive financial goals. With this holistic approach, advisors can rebalance accounts to help maximize their clients’ tax, investment and estate-planning outcomes.
The Pontera platform also is seamlessly integrated with the portfolio management software tools used by most Hightower advisors, including Black Diamond and Envestnet Tamarac.
ROYC
ROYC, the global leading Platform-as-a-Service for alternative investments is pleased to announce the appointment of Caspar Macqueen as its new Head of Business Development. This strategic hire comes as ROYC prepares to scale significantly following the proven success of its platform, as evidenced by testimonials from some of the most demanding financial institutions across Europe.
With an impressive career spanning close to 10 years in fintech and SaaS companies including recently as Head of UK & MEA Business Development for BlackRock Aladdin Alternatives, Caspar brings domain expertise in scaling tech driven sales organisations. At ROYC, he will be responsible for expanding the company’s solutions tailored to private equity General Partners (GPs) and financial intermediaries, including banks, wealth managers, and multi-family offices.
The addition of Caspar Macqueen to ROYC’s leadership team signals the company’s commitment to accelerating its growth trajectory and solidifying its position as a leader in enterprise solutions for private market investments.
SMArtX Advisory Solutions
SMArtX Advisory Solutions (“SMArtX”), a leading innovator in managed accounts technology, has announced the addition of 8 new strategies from two leading asset management firms to its Manager Marketplace. SMArtX’s continuously growing platform now offers 1,531 strategies from 322 distinguished asset management firms.
Oak Associates added large cap growth, small cap growth, and technology strategies to their lineup on the platform and Victoria Capital Management expanded their roster with a growth and income strategy as well as a suite of risk-based, target return strategies.
WealthFeed
WealthFeed, an AI-powered prospecting platform, announced today a strategic partnership with RIA Growth Catalyst, a premier resource for helping RIAs accelerate inorganic growth. This collaboration will equip RIA Growth Catalyst users with enhanced tools, delivering up-to-date contact data and AI-driven insights to streamline RIA prospecting and acquisitions.
The partnership, launching in January 2025 and rolling out over the following months, integrates thousands of verified data points into the RIA Growth Catalyst platform. Users will gain access to critical information, including contact details, alma mater, net worth, and age — empowering them to streamline prospecting workflows, save time on data gathering, and focus on building meaningful relationships.
