I started Altruist in 2018.
By that point, I’d become an insider in the financial advice industry, having launched and grown two registered investment advisories (RIAs), each with multiple hundreds of clients and billions in AUM. What I saw, however, frustrated me.
RIAs were dependent on legacy custodians with little skin in the game, but an outsized impact on end-client outcomes.
Like most institutional giants, custodians weren’t innovating; instead, they were offering an inferior, often painful service model, pushing outdated technology, and worst of all, focusing on retail customers at the expense of RIAs, with whom they had a clear conflict of interest.
In so doing, custodians were under-serving a massive market: demand for trusted financial advice has doubled since 2009, with over 15% of U.S. wealth management assets handled by RIAs, an amount totaling $114 trillion.
As an RIA, limited by the blunt tools offered by legacy custodians, I was forced to choose between serving fewer clients better, or more clients poorly. I wasn’t the only one, either—other advisors faced the same frustrations, yet everyone I talked to seemed hopeful that someone else would solve the problem.
Only, nobody did.
And it's easy to understand why. The technology is complicated, the regulatory environment is incredibly complex, and the incumbents are deeply entrenched. After 15 years in the industry, though, I realized that the unaddressed need was simply too great.
Clients and RIAs alike deserved better.
Nearly six years ago, Altruist was born: the first modern custodian built exclusively for RIAs. Our dedication to innovation and refusal to accept the status quo empower RIAs to offer the best financial advice possible, ultimately improving outcomes for end clients. At the end of the day, we exist to make financial advice better, more affordable, and accessible to everyone.
Today, Altruist is announcing our $169M Series E raise.
A huge thank you to our team, which has worked tirelessly to get here, our investors—ICONIQ Growth, Granite Capital Management, Adams Street Partners, and Sound Ventures—with whom we’re lucky to partner, and to our customers, whose input has shaped, and will continue to shape our product.
At Altruist, we’re building a world where more people get more from their money. This funding is fuel on the fire—and we’re just getting started.
