More than 100 million consumers access SmartAsset’s personal finance content, tools, and other resources each month. “The company helps millions of people make better financial decisions while simultaneously enabling advisors to grow their business.”Īlso participating in the round were Javelin Venture Partners, Contour, Citi Ventures, New York Life Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners, and CMFG Ventures. by providing an incredibly valuable resource for both consumers and financial advisors alike,” TTV Capital Partner Mark Johnson said. “SmartAsset is quickly expanding its lead in one of the largest markets in the U.S. With 202 full-time employees currently on board, SmartAsset is seeking to expand its workforce by more than 75% this year. The company also pointed to the growth it has experienced since its last major funding in 2018 – growing revenues by 10x and nearing $100 million in annual recurring revenue – to support its goal of “aggressively” adding to its workforce. “With this additional capital we are going to make further investments in building the web’s best personal finance resource and enhancing our ability to connect consumers to financial advisors across the U.S.” Specifically, SmartAsset noted in its funding announcement that it will invest in new product offerings, technology infrastructure, and data partnerships. “Our mission is to help people get better financial advice,” SmartAsset founder and CEO Michael Carvin said. The company secured a $110 million investment in a Series D round led by TTV Capital that takes SmartAsset’s valuation to more than $1 billion. “We’re good at identifying people who are already in the market for advice and then helping them with that process,” Carvin says.SmartAsset, a fintech that helps individuals connect with qualified financial advisors and improve their overall financial health, announced a major fundraising this week. Since launching SmartAdvisor in 2018, the platform has helped transfer $9.7 billion in assets to advisors, Carvin says. Three-quarters of them do not currently have an advisor, and 70% are either retired or less than 10 years away from retirement. The average investor looking for advice on SmartAdvisor is 57 years old with investable assets of $890,000, making them prime potential clients for most advisors, Carvin says. “One-person shops can be incredibly successful if they are hungry, want to grow and have a repeatable process,” Carvin says. While there are large RIAs on SmartAdvisor, he says small firms can also make it work. But at best, it’s grindy to separate the wheat from the chaff.”Ĭarvin agrees that busy advisors don’t want to sift through too many leads, no matter how affordable they are. “Our data suggests that at least as a category, these providers are providing real marketing value and. And advisors really do not like sifting through leads,” Kitces says in an email. “You might get 10 or 20-plus leads just to get one client. While some large RIAs have dedicated business development staff through weed through every prospect, most advisors don’t have those resources. Of course, the sales and screening process takes time, Kitces says. They might not hire the advisor, but that doesn’t mean they don’t hire someone else,” Garcia-Amaya says. “Every lead that fills out a form ingand says ‘find me a financial advisor’ is qualified. The quality of a lead is also in the eye of the beholder, Garcia-Amaya says. Zoe Financial, a competing matchmaking service, attempts to address this issue by having advisors pay for a referral only when the prospect hires them, says CEO Andres Garcia-Amaya. While these services are improving - Kitces’ recent study on client acquisition costs named SmartAsset, FeeOnlyNetwork and Zoe Financial as “capital-smart” ways to find new business - an issue remains with the quality of new leads, he says. “I’ve long been skeptical of these services… and in fact really haven’t seen much in results from them for years and years,” says XY Planning Network co-founder and Financial Planning contributor Michael Kitces, who cautioned advisors against using third-party websites for business development in 2016. NerdWallet’s Ask an Advisor and Investopedia’s Advisor Insights have both closed down. Similar past attempts by consumer personal finance companies have struggled to gain traction. Live Connections can help advisors convert prospects into leads, says SmartAsset CEO Michael Carvin.
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