Vestmark strikes 'standalone-RIA' black gold as TAMP AUM leaps 5x in 18 months as critical upgrade triggers a referral gusher

Breen, O. (2026, July 2). Vestmark strikes 'standalone-RIA' black gold as (TAMP) AUM leaps past $50-billion -- a five-fold increase -- after critical upgrade triggers T. Rowe Price, BlackRock, Capital Group, and VanEck referral gusher. RIABiz. https://riabiz.com/a/2026/7/3/vestmark-strikes-standalone-ria-black-gold-as-tamp-aum-leaps-past-50-billion-a-five-fold-increase-after-critical-upgrade-triggers-t-rowe-price-blackrock-capital-group-and-vaneck-referral-gusher

• Vestmark Advisory Services now manages $50 billion of RIA portfolios, up from $10 billion 18 months ago, a five-fold increase the firm attributes largely to referral relationships with major asset managers.

• Executive vice president Rob Battista credits rising standalone-RIA demand and work with leading asset managers, which created a meaningful referral channel bringing more individual RIA relationships into the business.

• The deal-clinching feature was tax management, delivered through the firm's 2023-launched customizable UMA tax overlay and direct-indexing tool VAST, whose assets grew from under $100 million in early 2025 to more than $10 billion today.

• Vestmark administers over $2 trillion, has run LPL's SMA platform since 2005 and UBS's similar program since 2008, and supports six of the 10 largest managed account program providers in the country.

• Scott MacKillop, WealthTech Strategy Partners advisor and former CEO of First Ascent, argues the acceleration is explained by new relationships with large asset managers rather than any unique competitive technology advantage.

• Cerulli's Scott Smith says improving tax management has been the top platform development priority over the last two years, cited by 76% of platforms in 2026, and that UMAs received the plurality of managed account platform inflows in 2024 and 2025.

• Vestmark expects approximately $10 billion more in assets to move onto the VAS platform by year-end 2026, with the vast majority of flows coming from RIAs and roughly half of the pipeline from new RIA relationships.

Knote: Third-party models grew 46% last year, which is excellent growth. But, it seems Vestmark is growing even faster with smart technology use, courting relationships with the asset managers, and good targeting.