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Crunchbase is running an article this morning reporting on the upturn in startups buying other startups. It's not quite back to the heady days of 2021, but a solid increase of 18% and a continuation of the trend. It makes sense to us for a few reasons: The race to scale is more important than ever right now, particularly in WealthTech. The funding market is still tight (but getting better) so there are values to be had. Modern startups are all on clean, easy-to-integrate tech platforms. VCs are looking to accelerate their exits as their funds get long in the tooth by buying their way closer to victory. Being smart and opportunistic with an acquisition can give a startup a significant boost towards scale, potential cross-selling opportunities, and key talent. We also point out that there is an opportunity for revenue arbitrage if you are able to acquire revenues at a lower multiple than what investors might pay. We just caution founders against getting distracted and taking their eyes off the ball during the process. Link to article

Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR announced that it has acquired FMG Suite, the marketing automation platform for insurance and wealth management. Normally, this would be a lot more exciting except that they are just buying it from another private equity firm, Aurora Capital Partners, who bought the company in June 2000. Transaction details were not disclosed. There are some points of interest, though. GTCR has been fairly active in the WealthTech space having bought Foundation Source, Charityvest (which we advised on), and notably, AssetMark. It will be interesting to see if they find any points of synergy between FMG and their other assets. In any case, we would probably say that GTCR is a bit deeper into WealthTech than Aurora Capital at the moment, so perhaps that makes for a happy home. https://fmgsuite.com/company/in-the-news/gtcr-to-acquire-fmg-suite-from-aurora-capital-partners/

Lightyear, a pan-European self directed trading platform, announced that they raised $23 million in a Series B round. It was lead by newcomer NordicNija with Superangel and SpecialistVC. Also participating were existing investors Lightspeed , Metaplanet, and Skaala, amongst others. The announcement came with a few updates on the platform. One, they are now at $1b of assets on platform across 25 countries. They are also launching AI tools to help investors and traders, namely (in their words): Why Did It Move? – Tap on a chart, and instantly see a summary of what drove that spike or drop in price. Bulls Say / Bears Say – Balanced, trustworthy summaries of the for and against cases for an investment, using credible sources. Lightning Updates – Bite-sized updates on the instruments you hold and watch, the macro environment, and market sentiment. We continue to track the theme of Self-Directed Trading as Lead Gen both in the US and Europe. We suspect that may be the direction Lightyear is heading, eventually. For more information on our Self-Directed Trading as Lead Gen theme or any of our other major thoughts on the WealthTech space, see our themes piece: WealthTech Themes for the Next 5 Years.

Yieldstreet, a WealthTech out to democratize access to alternative asset classes, announced that they have raised $77mm to bolster their comprehensive alternative investment platform. They had announced last November that they were looking to raise $70-100mm, so they did hit their mark. There was good participation from the venture capital community, which is nice to see, even if most of them were returning investors. Tarsadia Investments lead the deal and Mayfair Equity Partners, Edison Partners, Cordoba Advisory, and Kingfisher Investment Advisors joined in. RedBird Capital Partners also participated as a new face. The democratization of alternative investments continues to be a strong theme in WealthTech an wealth management. In the press release,  Mitchell Caplan, CEO of Yieldstreet, said “The next five years will define how individual investors access private markets investments.” We really can't argue against that. Addepar and Vestmark recently announced an expansion of their alternative capabilities and FS Investments has rebranded at Future Standard with a solid eye on the alternatives marketplace. All within the last week or so. For more information on our WealthTech theme "The Rise of Alternative Assets" or any of the other thoughts we have on the WealthTech space, see our thought piece WealthTech Themes for the Next 5 Years . Link to press release here

SS&C announced that they have acquired Calastone, the UK-based global funds network for approximately $1 billion. SS&C will fund the purchase out of cash on hand and debt (probably more of the latter than the former). Calastone is a good example of how technology is disrupting investment infrastructure. It uses modern technology to fully automate the mutual fund transaction process and has added tokenization to automate ETF and money market trading as well. It counts some of the most prestigious financial institutions as clients, including JP Morgan, where is runs behind their Morgan Money liquidity platform. Calastone started in 2007, raised almost $27mm, sold to Accel and Octopus, who then sold it to Carlyle, who has now sold it to SS&C. We will undoubtedly learn more on SS&C's quarterly earnings call, which is tomorrow, July 23, 5pm ET. Link to article

Eton Solutions, a WealthTech platform servicing family offices, announced a $58mm Series C Round lead by Navis Capital Partners. The funds will be used to build out their AI roadmap and scale their AtlasFive core technology offering. This brings the total raised by Eton to close to $120 million. They have approximately $1 trillion of assets on their platform and 800 of the world's wealthiest families, giving Addepar a run for its money. Based in North Carolina, Eton has clients in 15 countries and has an international office in Singapore (hence the involvement by Singapore-based Navis). They have been rapidly growing (+340% in the last three years) and will undoubtedly put the money to good use. For our part, we would love to see some of the features of their platform scaled out and brought down-market for the merely rich people. For example, they have a good accounting and bill payment solution and an interesting private loan tracking and servicing platform so you don't have to hound your relatives for loan payments. Link to article: link

SEI, the US WealthTech platform, announced that it was acquiring a majority stake in the wealth management firm Stratos Wealth. SEI will pay approximately $527 million for a 57% stake in the firm with an option to buy the rest under certain circumstances. We confess that we did not see this one coming. But, if the large RIA aggregators can build out their own WealthTech platforms, it only seems fair that the large WealthTech platforms can buy RIAs. The acquisition will give SEI a decent foothold in the wealth management space with 360 advisors and $37 billion in assets. We presume the next step will be to recruit new advisors to the platform by tempting them with SEI's technology, custody, and TAMP solutions. I certainly don't think we have seen the end of this story. As an aside, the Corp Dev team at SEI has been busy. Over the two years, they have acquired LifeYield, Altigo, and National Pension Trust. They also sold their family office services business to Aquiline. Link to article: link

d1g1t, a Canadian WealthTech platform, announced a partnership and strategic investment from RBC. RBC will invest an undisclosed amount alongside JAM Fintop and d1g1t will integrate their robust risk and analytics solution into the RBC ecosystem. d1g1t will use the proceeds to accelerate their roadmap and further expand their North American client base, so it's a big huzzah for Canadian WealthTech and North American clients. This is essentially a textbook example of how strategic investing should work. d1g1t gets the funding they need and RBC plugs a feature set gap at basically no expense. Plus, they are in pole position should they ever decide to acquire d1g1t, presumably. From an investment standpoint, it never hurts to make sure your investment is about to win a big client. It's like putting your thumb on the scale at the butcher shop. For more on our Corporate Venture Capital theme and other thoughts on the where the WealthTech industry is going, see our thematic piece WealthTech Themes for the Next 5 Years . Link to article: Link

Retirable, a New York-based WealthTech firm working to fill the retirement advice gap for folks who don't have easy access to advice, announced that they have secured a $10mm Series A round from a near panoply of strategic investors. This brings the total raised by the firm to almost $26mm. We believe it is an excellent validation point for the Peak 65 thesis and the rising importance of the distribution side of advice. Peak 65 refers to the fact that more people in the US will turn 65 next year than have ever done or will ever do (at least for the next 65 years). While people don't necessarily retire at 65 these days, they surely must think about it. We all talk about the opportunity of "the great liquidation" where retirees downsize houses, sell small businesses, and roll-over 401ks. It's a real opportunity, but it seems to us that to win that business, you need to make a good pitch on the distribution side of the client relationship, not something all advisors are focused on. The deal was lead by IA Capital, which we believe has some insurance backing, and also saw participation from two other insurance-based investors, Nationwide Ventures, and Western & Southern. This could mean that the Peak 65 thesis is playing very well at insurance companies, as it should, or that IA Capital has a lot of insurance buddies. Probably both. We do believe that annuities are going to see further resurgence as wealth management adds highly competitive distribution-phase proposals to their repertoire in an attempt to capture 401k rollovers and other assets of the Great Liquidation. Apart from the new faces, which is nice to see these days, existing investors also participated, including Clocktower Ventures (co-lead), Portage Ventures, Vestigo Ventures, Primary Venture Partners, and SilverCircle. For more information on our Peak 65 theses, and our other thoughts on WealthTech over the next five years, see our piece WealthTech Themes for the Next 5 Years .

Alpaca, a self-clearing API infrastructure for embedding stock, fixed income, and crypto trading, announced that they are acquiring WealthKernel, an API-based WealthTech infrastructure company that allows for the creation of WealthTech using a building-block approach. The transaction is being touted as a way for Alpaca to expand into the UK market. That makes sense to us. Apart from the installed base and brand, there are a lot of little things that WealthKernel has already solved for, such as the fact that in the UK they don't have IRA and Roth account types but use tax wrappers called ISAs, SIPPs, etc. instead. And then there are the differing regulatory environments to contend with as well. The acquisition should get them to market a lot faster, cheaper, and with fewer grey hairs. However, there are also some product synergies and compliments. Overall, we feel that the combined product offering is more robust than the two on their own so we are hoping they also integrate their feature sets. In any case, it is nice to see a solid cross-boarder acquisition. At some point, we hope to see WealthTech as a more unified, global market. Perhaps not in my lifetime, but someday. Link to article: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250710149866/en/Alpaca-Enters-UK-and-EU-Market-through-WealthKernel-Acquisition

iCapital announced that they have raised over $820mm in a funding round lead by T Rowe Price and SurgoCap Partners. Other noteable strategics participated including State Street, Temasek, UBS, and Bank of NY. The round was reportedly valued at $7.5 billion. We see this as yet another point of validation for the thesis of increased alternative use in wealth management. Blackrock estimates that over $20 trillion of wealth management assets will be invested in alternatives by 2030. Blackrock's CEO, Larry Fink, stated in his annual letter that he foresees a day when the ubiquitous 60/40 Portfolio becomes the 50/30/20 Portfolio with the 20% being made up of alternative assets. It's probably worth noting that Blackrock owns a large chunk of iCaptial, so it's probably less of a coincidence than one might expect. It's also notable that they are earmarking a good chunk of proceeds towards acquisitions. They have been quite acquisitive in the past and it looks like that will not be ending anytime soon. Nor should it, if the opportunity is really there to try and lock-up a rapidly growing and significant market. In some ways, it is their market to lose at this point. For more information on our "Rise of Alternatives in Wealth Management" thesis, as well as our other key WealthTech theses, please feel free to check out our themes piece "WealthTech Themes for the Next 5 Years" here: https://www.wealthtechstrategy.com/post/wealthtech-themes-for-the-rest-of-the-decade Link to full article: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250709680610/en/iCapital-Completes-Over-%24820-Million-Capital-Raise-Valuation-Surpasses-%247.5-Billion

A large funding round from Savvy Wealth, the all-in-one RIA platform, was announced earlier this week. Savvy Wealth not only raised a whopping $72million Series B round, but they did so with new strategic and venture money. Existing investors appear to have all participated as well.    Savvy Wealth combines proprietary advisor technology with in-house investment management, compliance, and operational support. They recruit advisors onto their platform, enabling them to serve clients efficiently through an integrated digital experience while handling the back-office complexities for them.    This recent raise brings their total equity funding to $106 million. They’ll utilize the new funds to enhance their AI-driven advisor platform, expand the team, and accelerate advisor recruitment as they continue building out their tech-enabled wealth management offering. Notably, this raise comes less than a year after their last round in August 2024, highlighting strong momentum and investor confidence in their growth strategy.    Interestingly, we see Vestigo Ventures and Euclidean Capital backing a new company, while many investors are sticking to existing investments to back their winners. Vestigo comes on as a strategic investor, bringing former LPL CEO, Mark Casady, onto the board. Additionally, Savvy bolstered its leadership team with the additions of Eric Hurkman as Chief Technology Officer (formerly founding CTO of Carta, valued at $7.4 billion), David Weiner as Chief Growth Officer (formerly Head of Growth at Compass, valued at $4 billion), and Lisandra Wilmott as Head of Legal & Compliance (formerly General Counsel of $200 billion AUM multi-family office Pathstone).    This raise highlights how investors continue to bet on platforms that combine technology with full-service support to attract advisors. With fresh capital and new leadership, Savvy Wealth is positioning itself to compete aggressively in an increasingly crowded RIA platform market. It’ll be worth watching how quickly they can translate this funding into advisor growth and market share gains.