Subscribe to receive timely notifications of WealthTech news, insights and announcements

Uptiq, an AI-enabled lending platform for the wealth management channel with an emphasis in Securities Based Lending, announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Broadridge and is receiving a minority investment from them as well. We see this as a textbook incumbent-startup partnership. Broadridge gets what it wants: accelerated innovation and improved feature sets. Uptiq also gets what it wants, which is the same thing most startups want: money and a strong distribution partner (also money). Broadridge will integrate Uptiq into their Wealth Lending Network, a platform that allows advisors without a bank affiliation to compete in areas like Securities Based Lending. Advisors are looking to add ancillary services to become more relevant in their clients' financial lives. Lending solutions are a natural compliment, allowing advisors to assist with the liability side of their clients' balance sheets, not just the assets. Link to article: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/broadridge-partners-with-uptiq-to-modernize-wealth-management-with-ai-powered-wealth-lending-solutions-302522403.html

GeoWealth, the Chicago-based Turnkey Asset Management Program provider, announced that it has received a $38 million investment from Apollo (with previous contributions from Blackrock, JP Morgan, and Kayne Anderson). But that is just the tip of the iceberg. GeoWealth is also partnering with Apollo to enhance its Public-Private alternatives offering, which we see as a fairly big deal. Apart from fielding new Public-Private offerings, other uses of proceeds include accelerating innovation for its UMA platform (useful for public-private models) and completing the acquisition of the TAMP assets of Freedom Advisors. So, it looks like another summer down the drain for our friends at GeoWealth, but we love the way they are moving the industry forward. Just this morning we were writing about the rush to provide alternative investment functionality in wealth management. Among the firms that have added or initiated alternative investments are BlackRock, SEI, Goldman, Fidelity, CAIS, AssetMark, SMArtX, BNY Mellon, Orion, Vestmark, Addepar, and now GeoWealth. I am sure I missed several. Who do we think will be the big winners in this rush to alternatives, apart from the investors presumably? TAMPs. We believe that the TAMPs will be the gatekeepers for the alternative product until efficient indexes can be developed. Something to keep an eye on. To read more about the rush to alternatives, see our post WealthTech is Rushing to Launch Functionality around Alternatives .

At the start of the year, Larry Fink published his annual letter, “The Democratization of Investing.” In it, he didn’t just talk about markets. He painted a picture of a coming transformation away from the classic 60/40 portfolio, pointing instead to a future where private infrastructure and alternative investments aren’t niche, but fundamental. He hinted that we’re heading toward a 50/30/20 world, where private credit, private equity, and real assets make up 20% of a standard portfolio. Now, when BlackRock says something like this, you have to wonder: Is this just theory, or is the industry already shifting to make it reality? The recent timeline seems to suggest the latter. Let’s take a look at recent movements and their respective dates.  October  2024 – BlackRock partnered with iCapital and GeoWealth to allow RIAs who use their custom model portfolios to invest in private assets alongside traditional investments through unified managed accounts.  March  2025 – SEI announced the launch of its alternative investment product marketplace, providing an end-to-end investment experience and increased access for advisors.   May  2025 – Goldman Sachs Asset Management also teamed up with GeoWealth to introduce public-private custom models for RIAs.  June  2025 – Fidelity teamed up with Envestnet and debuted open-architecture custom models with semi-liquid alts.  June  2025 – CAIS added BlackRock, Carlyle, KKR, and Franklin models to its new model marketplace.  July  2025 – AssetMark announced that it will be integrating private equity and private credit funds into its managed account platform with an expected Q4 launch.  July  2025 – SMArtX stepped up UMA integration of semi-liquid alts with liquidity, trading, and tax automation all in one.  July  2025 – BNY Mellon deepened its alliance with iCapital to bolster its Alts Bridge platform to better connect advisors to a comprehensive range of alternative asset managers and products.  July  2025 - Vestmark teamed up with iCapital, BlackRock, and Dynasty Financial Partners to add private markets to its tax-managed UMA solution, breaking a longstanding barrier that kept private funds out of UMA structures  July  2025 - Orion integrates with iCapital, enabling advisors to build diversified, goal-aligned portfolios and view reporting all within Orion’s platform.  July  2025 – Addepar showcased how its platform is purpose-built for the complexities of alternatives through data management and private fund benchmarks.   August  2025 – GeoWealth received $38mm in Series C funding from alternative Asset Manager, Apollo, to accelerate public-private UMA Capabilities.     While everyone is watching BlackRock, Goldman, and the large alternative asset managers, our provocative thought is that the biggest winners in the shift to alternatives will be the TAMPs, at least in terms of percentages. Platforms like Envestnet, SEI, GeoWealth, AssetMark, SMArtX, Vestmark, and Orion are quietly building the rails to embed private markets into everyday advisor workflows. These are the systems advisors already use to allocate, rebalance, and manage client portfolios. If alternatives are truly going to scale beyond UHNW and institutional circles, it won’t be because asset managers create more products, it’s going to be because TAMPs cut complexity and boost availability. Regardless of how well the TAMPs make out on this, it seems inevitable, one way or the other.

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 .