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Allasso, a Swiss options analytics platform, has announced that it raised $3mm in seed capital from a VC and some high net worth investors. We have increased the size of their logo on our post in recognition of the fact that they did this despite a historically slow market for early stage funding. Crunchbase is reporting that global early stage funding was off 44% from just July. Granted, it was August, but that is a substantially larger drop than normal and it is already off a fairly low base. WealthTech has seen a bit of a rebound off of the dismal 1Q 2025 funding levels, but still only back to where it was in 4Q 2024, which was not stellar either. At any rate, we celebrate this as a good sign and congratulate them on their raise.

Gusto, the fast-growing online payroll provider, announced that they are acquiring Guideline, the online 401(k) plan provider. Terms of the deal were not released, but we estimate it was in excess of $1B given that revenue at guideline was reported at around $150 million per year and they have been growing at a good clip. No real surprises here. ADP has a 401(k) platform and Paychex as well. Gusto and Guideline have had a longstanding working relationship. Gusto reportedly was the strongest source of leads for Guideline so integration should be smooth. It will be interesting to see what Workday does about it. In the meantime, Gusto is the WealthTech Strategy Partners payroll provider so I suppose there is nothing to do but kick back and wait for our lavish 401(k) package to roll in.

We have a little end-of-Summer romance going on north of the border as Wealthsimple, the Toronto-based personal trading and investing platform, acquires Fey Labs, the investment research platform based in Montreal. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The rationale seems fairly straight forward: provide traders with easy-to-use, informative research tools and gain market share through customer delight. That in itself does not really hit any of our themes, but it is a prelude to building an installed base that can subsequently be used for advice leadgen, which is a very strong theme in our view. While we do see this as additive and smart, what we really want to see is self-directed trading platforms go after the whole financial relationship. Personal financial apps like the old Mint and YNAB offer extraordinarily and embarrassedly poor handling of investment accounts. Personal Capital was on the right path, but maybe not banking enough. It would be nice to have an app that you can just open, see everything, do everything and be done with it. I pitched this to Intuit back in 2012. Still waiting. Link to article

The race to provide wealth management clients with easier access to alternatives is well underway. Over the past eight months we have seen over a dozen major financial institutions launch initiatives to help democratize alternatives. The financial industry tends to move slowly, so this is a veritable stampede. Not surprisingly, we are also tracking a 479% year-over-year increase in funding for alternatives enablers and those that mentioned private market access in their use of funds.  In 2024, Nasdaq Private Market, Securitize, and Canoe led the bulk of the investment activity, alongside 17 other companies that announced fundraising rounds. Collectively, we land at $227 million raised across 20 companies, for an average of ~$17 million per round and a median of ~$7 million.  In 2025, we have already tracked more than $1.2 billion raised through the first eight months of the year. One might note that most of this was driven by iCapital’s $820 million Series E. We won’t argue with you but will point out that even if you exclude that single raise, 2025 funding is still on track to be 2.24x higher than 2024. Excluding the largest deal, 2025 already amounts to ~$424 million across just 13 rounds, for an average of ~$35 million and a median of ~$18 million through August.  The conviction behind this trend is visible at the highest levels. In April, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink outlined a “50/30/20” portfolio vision, emphasizing the need for a 20% allocation to alternatives. That conviction is clear in BlackRock’s own actions, from investments in two private-markets tech companies to its acquisition of Preqin. These moves, and the investments outlined above, highlight how quickly alternatives are moving from the margins to the mainstream. With demand building, we expect to see continued funding and new solutions to bring alternatives within reach of retail investors.  To read more about the rush to alternatives, see our other blog posts and our themes piece:  WealthTech Themes for the Next 5 Years .   Disclaimer: We currently track 225 companies globally that build technology enabling access to private markets. This analysis is based on publicly available information and includes only announced or disclosed rounds from companies whose primary solutions involve private markets, or whose stated use of funds was directed toward private markets. As with all private-market data, figures are subject to change as new rounds are announced or clarified, and some activity may not be publicly reported or fully verifiable.

Carlyle, the US-based private equity firm, announced today that they are acquiring Intelliflo, the UK-based end-to-end advisor platform from its parent, Invesco. Carlyle is paying $200mm -- $135mm in cash up-front and $65mm in deferred incentives. Invesco paid about $255mm for Intelliflo back in 2018. They also bought RedBlack in 2019 for an undisclosed amount, which they folded into Intelliflo and is going to Carlyle as well. It's pretty tough to call this consolidation, though: (1) it will continue to operate independently given that it is going to be a platform company for Carlyle and (2) they are actually going to separate RedBlack out from Intelliflo and have it operate in the US as an independent company under separate management. We have seen a substantial pickup in interest in WealthTech from the private equity community over the last two years. Our pet theory is that private equity's journey with RIA aggregators has shown them how important the technology piece is to the whole roll-up thesis. Their problem is usually that private equity likes to spend $200mm+ when they make a platform acquisition, and there are only so many WealthTech properties available at that level. After they make a platform purchase, they typically look for bolt-on acquisitions, and I would be surprised if Carlyle were any exception to this. Link to Article

Basic Capital, an innovative 401(k) platform, announced that it has raised a $25mm Series A round led by Lux Capital and Forerunner Ventures. Apart from being a rare 401(k) platform built on a modern tech stack, they offer participants the ability to leverage their returns by lending them $4 for each $1 they invest. The general idea is that the investors get to potentially compound their savings faster, so long as the market goes up. In return, Basic Capital gets a decent interest rate and 5% of the appreciation when the assets are eventually sold. They also have a "one-click" Roth IRA rollover, which is the optimal number of clicks compared to a typical 401(k) transaction, which can be rather involved, lengthy, and full of friction. Given their penchant for innovation, and considering they have $25mm and a modern tech platform, perhaps they will be one of the first to take advantage of any new opportunities that arise out of President Trump's executive order exploring alternative investment use in the 401(k) market. We would very much like to see that, although perhaps without the leverage.

Cache, a Canadian-based firm that allows investors to swap large equity positions for diversified portfolios, announced that it raised $12.5 million in a round lead by long-time investor First Round Capital with participation from existing investor Quiet Capital. Cache allows investors with a large stock concentration (and low cost basis) exchange their holding for a more diversified index tax-deferred. They currently offer the NASDAQ 100 and the S&P 500 but part of the proceeds will be used to launch additional funds. Basically, you exchange your concentrated holding for shares in a fund that also contains everyone else's concentrated holdings. Your cost basis transfers to the shares you receive, if done correctly, and the capital gains are deferred. They then us some sort of magic (probably derivatives) to benchmark everything to the appropriate index. And voila, your concentrated stock position is now a more diversified index. This sort of maneuver has been traditionally reserved for private banking clients at large firms, but the Cache technology has allowed them to move downstream to minimums as low as $100,000. It seems to be working. They have grown to over $625mm in AUM over the last year or so. Tesla seems to be the most popular stock holding to exchange, which is not surprising. This is an excellent example of the Family Office as-a-Service thesis, where WealthTech firms take some of the high-touch/low-scale services normally found at a family office and scales them down the net worth chain with smart technology. For more information on that, read our theme piece WealthTech Themes for the Next 5 Years .

Last week, we looked at how and who in WealthTech is rushing to launch functionality around alternatives. Today, we took a step back to think about why. Why is there so much interest in an investment category with so many unknowns and so many barriers to entry?   With the stories of significant returns and portfolio diversification coming from private markets, investors are seeking to do the same. They want access to the kinds of opportunities that have historically been limited to institutions and ultra-high-net-worth investors, and they’re willing to pay extra if it means participating in potential like this.  Alternative AUM has more than doubled over the past decade, rising from $7.5 trillion in 2014 to $16.7 trillion in 2024 ( Preqin ).    Even among HNW ($1mm-$10mm investible assets), more than 50% of Schwab’s clients expect at least 5% of their portfolios to be allocated to alternatives ( Schwab ).      The switch is mainly driven by three trends:    Higher Returns With the rise of the ETF came an effortless path to achieve market returns. Many investors now feel that they need access to exclusive opportunities to beat the market.  72% of investors aged 21–43 believe it is no longer possible to achieve above-average returns by investing solely in traditional stocks and bonds ( BofA ).      Diversification and Stability  Private markets help reduce volatility and correlation with public markets, offering a meaningful diversification benefit during market downturns ( WEF ).   With public markets increasingly concentrated (e.g. over 30% of the S&P 500’s market cap is held in 7 stocks), investors are realizing their portfolios aren’t as diversified as they appear.    Larger Investable Opportunity Set  There are more than 17,200 private businesses in the U.S. with annual revenues greater than $100 million, compared with fewer than 4,060 public companies of that size ( Morgan Stanley ).  With fewer IPOs and shrinking public company lists, investors turn to private markets simply to broaden exposure and access companies otherwise unreachable.    This growing demand is forcing WealthTech providers to rethink how private markets are accessed and managed. Solution providers are responding by partnering up and innovating with new tools, platforms, and distribution models to make alternatives more accessible than ever before.

Objectway, a global end-to-end WealthTech platform based in Italy, has sold a majority stake to private equity firm Cinven. This is probably the first pure WealthTech we have seen Cinven dive into and it appears to be a platform investment for them. They do have some WealthTech and adjacent exposure, mainly: Alter Domus, a tech-enabled fund administrator for Private Equity, Real Assets, and Private Credit. With over $2 trillion in AUA, there could be some interesting synergies here. IFGL, an insurance and investment advisor for internationally mobile folks. Säkra, one of the largest insurance companies in Sweden. Could be a new Objectway deployment, if it isn't already. True Potential, a tech-enabled advice provider, this one is pretty solid WealthTech. We will be watching to see if any synergies develop out of this. We have seen a marked pick-up in interest in WealthTech from the private equity community over the last two years. Everyone seems to be looking, but it is difficult for them to find an initial investment because, to get involved in a new sector, they need to make a platform purchase large enough to be worth their while, and there aren't all that many of those. They continue to be active on the tuck-in acquisition front once they have a platform to bolt onto. For example, the last two companies we have sold have been to private equity as tuck-in acquisitions. WealthTech isn't necessarily what we would think of for private equity, who usually like strong cash-flow situations where growth is sometimes secondary to debt magic and financial structuring. We suspect that their strong involvement in the RIA roll-up market has shown them first hand how important the technology piece is to that business and how a targeted bolt-on acquisition program can add value and scale. Overall, we see it as a healthy development for the market. Link to article

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.