Venture Capital News: Wealthfront Receives $75M
2018-01-04
REDWOOD CITY, CA, Today, Wealthfront announced a $75 million round of financing led by Tiger Global Management.
The round included participation from all existing venture capital investors, including Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Social Capital and Spark Capital Growth.
Wealthfront is leading the wave of software-based financial services companies that enable underserved young professionals and families to invest through convenient, low cost mobile-based services. The company will use the capital to expand its efforts to optimize and automate even more financial services using Path as the foundation for all client interaction. Path is Wealthfront's automated financial planning service that also consolidates clients' financial accounts into one view.
"We're excited to add Tiger Global Management to our roster of investors. Its funding allows us to continue launching innovative features that meet the needs of a group ignored by the traditional industry," said Andy Rachleff, co-founder and CEO of Wealthfront. "Path's appeal to young people propelled our growth such that people under 45 now represent 85% of our clients. We believe our success with this group is based on our unique ability to optimize and automate our clients' personal finances. This year we'll be launching many new software-based capabilities that will provide value to our clients throughout their lifetime."
According to a Deloitte study, by 2030 the Millennial Generation and Generation X will control the majority of financial assets in the United States, projected to be $33 trillion. Unfortunately these young people continue to be underserved, as their preference for technology-driven experiences are not being met by the traditional industry. Wealthfront's unique combination of mobile-based financial planning, investment management and banking-related services removes the inconvenience of scheduling a meeting with a financial advisor and allows clients to plan for major milestones in the same way they perform all their other daily tasks - on their phones.
"Wealthfront's exclusively software-based model gives the company a superior approach to capture the younger, fast-growing market of investors," said Lee Fixel, Partner at Tiger Global Management. "We're excited to support continued growth of the business and help Wealthfront become to the Millennial generation what Charles Schwab is to Baby Boomers."
In addition to an expansion into financial planning services in 2017, Wealthfront launched a number of cutting edge PassivePlus investment features as well as its first banking service, the Portfolio Line of Credit. The company doubled its assets under management in 2017 and now manages over $9 billion.
About Wealthfront
Wealthfront is the only robo-advisor to offer the combination of financial planning, investment management and banking-related services exclusively through software. Because of this pure software model, the company has quickly become the automated advisor of choice among people in their 30s and 40s. Anyone with $500 can open a Wealthfront investment account which offers access to the company's unique PassivePlus investment strategy and comprehensive automated financial planning service. Wealthfront was launched by Andy Rachleff and Dan Carroll in December 2011 and currently manages more than $9 billion. For more information please visit www.wealthfront.com.
About Tiger Global Management, LLC
Tiger Global Management, LLC is an investment firm that deploys capital globally. The firm's fundamentally oriented investments focus primarily on the global Internet, software, financial technology, consumer and industrial sectors. The private equity strategy has a ten-year investment horizon and targets growth-oriented private companies. Such investments have included Spotify, Harry's, Warby Parker, Peloton, JD.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yandex, Mail.ru Group, Despegar, Ola and Flipkart. The public equity efforts emphasize deep due diligence on individual companies and long-term secular themes. Tiger Global Management, LLC was founded in 2001 and is based in New York with affiliate offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Melbourne.
Disclosures
PassivePlus is a registered trademark and property of CSSC Investment Advisory Services, Inc. ("CSSC") and is used under license. CSSC and Wealthfront are not affiliated companies.
Portfolio Line of Credit is a margin lending product offered exclusively to clients of Wealthfront, Inc. by Wealthfront Brokerage Corporation. The risks of margin lending include interest rate risk, margin call risk, and liquidation risk. Read about these risks in the Margin Handbook, and consider them before you borrow.
Financial advisory services are offered by Wealthfront, Inc., an SEC-registered investment advisor. Brokerage products and services are offered by Wealthfront Brokerage Corporation, member FINRA / SIPC, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wealthfront, Inc. Please see our Full Disclosure for important details.
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