Pru, TIAA, State Street Put $5M in 401(k) Plan Annuity Tech Firm

News June 26, 2024 at 02:25 PM
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Micruity is moving ahead with efforts to build a new nervous system for retirement services providers with new backing from some giant financial firms.

The company has raised an additional $5 million to expand support for annuities and other income planning tools to its Micruity Advanced Routing System, it announced Tuesday.

The MARS platform can help employers and their service providers add new types of income planning features to 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans and other retirement plans, by connecting asset managers, life insurers and recordkeepers.

Other startups have said they want to rewire parts or all of the financial services industry, but Micruity has more support than most startups that express similar ambitions.

Pacific Life and Western & Southern Financial Group had already provided $6 million in funding before the company raised the new round of capital. The companies that joined the investor pool Tuesday are Prudential Financial, State Street Global Advisors and TIAA Ventures.

What it means: Some of your clients' retirement plan data could eventually move through MARS wires.

Micruity: Micruity is a San Mateo, California-based company.

Trevor Gary, the CEO and co-founder, previously was an actuarial consultant at Deloitte Canada.

The company came to life in 2018 and has already been able to support use of income annuities in retirement plans.

Last week, MetLife, a company that has already been working with Micruity, announced it and Micruity will join to develop MetLife's new Universal Digital Retirement Platform.

The platform will help retirement plan participants understand and buy annuities. It will connect existing employer, plan administrator and recordkeeping systems.

Wayne Baker, TIAA Ventures' chief investment officer, said he sees the company has being useful to sellers of institutional income products.

"Micruity has built an innovative infrastructure solution," Baker said.

The coming changes: Micruity will be adding more support for use of annuities designed for asset accumulation and other types of income planning products.

The features will make the Micruity system more useful for plans that want to add options aimed at working-age retirees, the company said.

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