Rich Cancro will have a lot to be thankful for next week.
In a year that has already seen Vanare, Cancro’s wealth management technology firm, build a female-focused robo advisor and become preferred technology providers for advisors at Pershing and Apex Clearing, Cancro can now enter the holiday season with $20 million dollars of new funding.
The investment comes from WisdomTree Investments, an ETF and ETP sponsor and asset manager headquartered in New York. The Series A funding gives WisdomTree a 36 percent equity interest in Vanare, and introduces the technology to WisdomTree’s distribution network. WisdomTree is also makings its asset allocation models available on Vanare’s open-architecture platform.
Cancro also announced Vanare is officially rebranding to AdvisorEngine to highlight the company’s goal of being a complete white labeled technology solution for advisors. The new name is also intended to help clear up some confusion around the company.
Joel Bruckenstein, the producer of the Technology Tools for Today (T3) conferences, pointed this out on the T3 website and noted that the name change is a positive for the company.
“To this day, most people familiar with the firm are not sure how to pronounce Vanare,” Bruckenstein wrote. “Secondly Vanare, which from the outset was an advisor platform, merged some time ago with NestEgg, a consumer facing robo. The result was confusion over both the mission and the branding.”
Cancro added that the funding would be used to fill staff positions in sales and marketing, product development and the client service and onboarding teams.
The financial investment and strategic relationship with WisdomTree will enhance our execution and allow us to grow as an independent, open architecture firm," Cancro said.