It’s a new year and a new Word on WealthTech. December came to a busy close with announcement of asset growth, new integrations and a new IPO. We’re recharged and ready to break it all down and predict how it will impact advisors and the industry, so let’s kick off 2024 with our unbiased perspective on these five big WealthTech headlines:
Altruist Adds Integrations With Orion, MoneyGuide and Others
Altruist added new integrations with Orion’s portfolio accounting software, Orion’s Redtail CRM, Kwanti’s portfolio analytics and portfolio analysis software, Envestnet | MoneyGuidePro, IncomeLab’s Life Hub and eMoney’s financial planning softwares, adding to existing integrations with Wealthbox, Right Capital, Black Diamond, Advyzon and Nitrogen. Altruist continues to do the things that make them a more realistic custodial partner for RIAs as opposed to some other newer custodians that weren't architected for complex multi-account RIAs. We like their trajectory and believe 2024 will be another standout year for them. We think advisory RIAs should keep an eye on Altruist.
Apex Files With The SEC for IPO
Apex Fintech Solutions submitted a draft registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering, considering a second attempt at going public. This news has a bigger impact on wealthtech as a whole. Over the last six years we've seen a lot of industry growth through the private markets, which is likely slowing down. Therefore, the concept of using public markets to raise capital quickly is potentially game changing for the wealth technology industry. We are concerned that it’s been a long time since a wealthtech firm went public. A lot of change in how firms are structured and drive their revenue has occurred. So while it could be a phenomenal way for us to fund technology innovation, we’re cautious because we don't know what the public markets will make of Apex.
Tokenbridge, A Distributed Ledger Technology Startup, Launched
Tokenbridge hopes to work with other firms in the wealth and fund management industries to bring about tokenization of assets and data using distributed ledger technology. The concept of distributed ledger technology gaining traction in wealth management is definitely something to watch in 2024. With tokenization, the existence of an asset and the ownership and every piece of data around it that is shared, translated and transacted is done securely in the same code. It's like having a universal depository for asset location, all owners, transactions, prices and the entire structure. We would argue that it’s an undeniable opportunity for our industry to move much faster, much more efficiently and spend a lot less money. By the time I end my career, we won’t have the same level of large institutional decades-old depositories, clunky systems and separate management tools. It'll be an undeniable cut to the expense of an organization and it starts here.
Wealth.com Appoints Wealth Management Visionary Jamie Hopkins as Strategic Advisor
Having Jamie Hopkins as a strategic advisor lends credibility to Wealth.com. We've seen many very smart people rallying behind Wealth.com. And while we haven’t seen them displace a lot of the incumbents yet, they seem to have this figured out. We’re optimistic Wealth.com will make more gains in the next 12 months.
Addepar Hits $5 Trillion In Assets Tracked
In December, Addepar reached a milestone of $5 trillion in assets tracked. It’s important to recognize that from its earliest days, Addepar has stuck to its strength which is a really good thing as the world of wealthtech gets more complicated. As they’ve grown they haven’t sacrificed service. We applaud them for that.
Thanks for starting out the year with us! We’ll share more insights in February.