Wealthify acquired in pioneering deal for Aviva
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Roboinvestment firm Wealthify has been acquired by Aviva in a deal that comes three months after the fintech company’s last fundraising round, in July.
That round, which saw £661k invested, valued the startup at £10.8m pre-money. It was backed by equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs; the fund’s second known contribution to Wealthify.
Founded by Michelle Pearce and Richard Theo in 2011, Wealthify developed software allowing users to invest in stocks for a monthly fee – through a stocks and shares ISA or a general portfolio. Before its acquisition, Wealthify had raised a total of £2.14m over four fundraisings.
That’s far less than its nearest rivals, Nutmeg and Moneyfarm (on £66m and £13.5m respectively) but it is the first of the three to exit.
A newcomer is investment platform Munnypot, which has been around for just two years but raised £2.03m, and in 2016 was valued at £7.5m.
In other roboinvestor news, Investoo Group has recently acquired roboadvice comparison site RoboAdvisors.com, and Moneyfarm has today acquired Ernest, whose software created a digital financial assistant.
Increased activity in the roboinvestment space is unsurprising: there remain relatively few roboadvisors native to the UK compared to the US, which boasts Schwab, Vanguard, MarketRiders and numerous others. We’re likely to see that change as roboadvice becomes more popular, and consumer pressure on retail banks and wealth management firms increases.
For more information on how roboadvisors fit into the broader fintech landscape, take a look at our guide.
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