![]() 12, 2021, saying that "customers have invested more than $9.6 billion with Acorns." The quarterly 13F filings of its main investing subsidiary, Acorns Advisers LLC, also offer insight into its investments. Though Acorns tends to, understandably, highlight its user growth, Acorns did give a hint as to AUM Oct. The trade-off, however, is that Acorns has small account sizes, since its app is designed for "micro-investing." Acorns rounds up the amount of a user's debit card purchase and invests the difference in ETFs.Īcorns is also fairly unique in that it charges a monthly fee, whereas many robo-advisers, like Betterment, charge a percentage of the client's AUM. That is far more than Wealthfront, which has "more than 470,000 clients," per the Jan. Acorns had 4.3 million subscribers as of September 2021, and is shooting for 10 million by 2025. Personal Capital closed a deal in 2020 with Empower Retirement, a unit of Canadian life insurer Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co. They agreed to a maximum $1 billion deal value, consisting of $825 million up front and an additional $175 million if Personal Capital hits growth targets.Īssuming Betterment is interested in selling, we think it might fetch about $1.7 billion, based on AUM. Betterment's AUM stood at $32 billion as of September 2021, whereas Wealthfront's was roughly $27 billion as of the merger announcement. Betterment received a $1.3 billion valuation in a September 2021 funding round, but a buyer might be willing to pay a premium given Betterment's size and brand recognition.Īcorns is another standout company in the digital investment adviser arena, in our view, but for a different reason: The size of its user base. The underperformance of many financial technology stocks might also dissuade executives from pursuing an IPO.īetterment is now the last independent among the "Big Three" retail robo-adviser pioneers. It could stay independent, but if its venture capital backers are eager for an exit, we think a sale would make sense. But a seasoned and relatively large company like Betterment still has options. Several of the small startups have since gone under. The model proved a tough one to sustain without a sufficient amount of scale, however, and tech-forward industry titans like The Charles Schwab Corp. eventually created their own rival services. Betterment, Wealthfront and Personal Capital Corp. were founded around the time of the Great Recession and quickly became the front-runners among robo-adviser startups when measured by assets under management. fintech startups, offering automated investing services that buy exchange-traded funds and charge much lower annual fees than traditional money managers. Sometimes referred to as "robo-advisers," companies like Wealthfront emerged in the early stages of the recent wave of U.S. presence - started its own digital investment advisory service known as SmartWealth, but shut it down in 2018 and sold the assets to SigFig Wealth Management LLC. ![]() The Swiss banking and asset management giant - which has a large U.S. UBS is both a well-capitalized acquirer and a logical one. A Bloomberg article in November 2021 suggested a $1.5 billion price tag, which ended up being very close: UBS has agreed to pay $1.4 billion for the company, per the Jan. ![]() Though Wealthfront was rumored to be on the block, it was unclear whether the company would find a buyer and at what price. But we think they might consider selling to large incumbents as an alternative exit for their venture capital investors, given the poor stock market showing of many financial technology companies and the deals struck by Wealthfront and Personal Capital. Digital Investing Market Report.ĭigital investment advisers Betterment and Acorns have both been pegged as IPO candidates for some time. digital investment advisers Betterment LLC and Acorns Grow Inc. might explore sales, if they are not already doing so, given that both entities have built notable customer bases that likely would attract the attention of buyers, as described in our recently published U.S. Wealthfront Corp.'s sale to UBS Group AG supports our view that fellow U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |