The fintech startup incubator and holding company TIFIN has expanded its partnership with ETF Managers Group, the thematic ETF issuer behind the cannabis ETF and others, according to an announcement.
Under the new partnership, ETFMG will distribute a series of thematic ETFs through TIFIN’s Magnifi, a natural-language-powered investment marketplace with over 140,000 registered users. That will include ETFMG’s Travel Tech ETF (AWAY); the Alternative Harvest ETF (MJ); the Prime Cyber Security ETF (HACK); and the Prime Junior Silver Miners ETF (SILJ), to name a few.
This builds on an existing partnership between the two companies, in which two ETFMG funds currently sit on TIFIN Wealth’s thematic investment marketplace used by over 1,000 advisory firms.
Magnifi is, in a nutshell, a semantic search engine specific to financial products, which can help not only financial advisors and portfolio managers, but also everyday investors searching for investments or wishing to compare them.
The startup’s mission is to make Magnifi the financial industry’s favorite search engine and disrupt the sale and distribution of financial products. Magnifi was co-founded in 2018 by venture capitalist and investor Isabelle Freidheim and serial entrepreneur Vinay Nair. Magnifi is one of several holdings within TIFIN, of which Nair is chairman and founder.
"TIFIN, including through its Magnifi marketplace, is undeniably innovating through its proprietary technology, to make it easier for investors to search for themes and identify the investment opportunities that matter to them," said Sam Masucci, CEO and founder of ETFMG, in a statement. "The ETF world offers thousands of choices, making it a challenge for investors to navigate. Simply said, Magnifi helps investors make smarter decisions and we are thrilled to be partnering with TIFIN in support of this common goal."
TIFIN recently laid off 21 U.S. employees and asked its top nine executives to take a 20% pay cut, according to an anonymously leaked email sent to WealthManagement.com. Those cuts in personnel represent 10% of the firm’s staff of more than 200 employees, which are a mix of remote workers and those located in its Boulder, Colo., headquarters or its New York City office.
A company official said the firm was preparing for potentially tough times ahead but that it had continued to hire and had not seen any loss of revenue.
This comes on the heels of TIFIN announcing the close of its $109 million Series D funding round in mid-May and new $842 million valuation.