Fintech firm Altruist recently raised $112 million in a series D funding round that it says will make it more competitive with Charles Schwab and Fidelity in the market for RIA custodial services.
The new funding round was led by Insight Partners and new investor Adams Street Partners, with continued support from existing investors, Altruist said. Other participants in the round were Bill McNabb, ex-Vanguard CEO and chairman; Ron Carson, founder and CEO of Carson Group; and Marty Bicknell, CEO and president of Mariner Wealth Advisors.
"While the RIA industry has evolved rapidly over the past 20 years, the custodians serving them have not," said Altruist CEO Jason Wenk in a statement. "Legacy custodians have little incentive to innovate and rebuild technology that would enable advisors to scale and reach as many people as possible."
Last month, Altruist said it acquired rival custodial platform Shareholders Service Group. Altruist also recently launched a brokerage offering that it says makes the third-largest custodian based on the number of clients firms.
Altruist's new funding adds to a previously undisclosed $110 million series C raised in November 2021 and led by Declaration Partners with Venrock, Insight Partners and Vanguard participating. Its total funding now tops $290 million.
Altruist nearly tripled its assets under management in 2022 while growing revenue by more than 1,700% year over year, it said. The company expects to reach profitability this calendar year after less than five years in operation.
Orion Adds BlackRock SMAs
Orion Advisor Solutions said Monday it expanded its already extensive partnership with BlackRock by adding the asset manager's professionally managed fixed income separately managed accounts to the Orion Portfolio Solutions platform.
"BlackRock is the first fixed income SMA manager on the OPS platform with strategies that are accessible to all types of investors, not just high net worth individuals," according to Ryan Beach, Orion Wealth Management president.
"This is one more way Orion is delivering on our promise of providing advisors with a broad investment line-up to build well-diversified portfolios that are customized to investors' unique needs," he said in a statement.
BlackRock's fixed income SMAs are available through OPS platform within its Unified Managed Account portfolio structure.
