This year’s stock market volatility has been caused by looming interest rate increases, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and soaring inflation, yet these four investing fintechs have nonetheless added millions of consumers and billions of dollars worth of assets.
After attracting $500 million from investors in 2021, New York City-based iCapital, which is returning to Forbes’ Fintech 50 for the sixth consecutive year, has seen remarkable growth because of the exploding popularity of alternative investments. The platform, which now manages more than $125 billion in assets, up 70% in a year, assists financial advisors and legacy organizations like UBS and BlackRock in diversifying the portfolios of their wealthy clients through venture capital investments, real estate, structured debt, and other assets.
Additionally, there will be more: With the purchase of fintech platform Simon, which assisted in issuing more than $48 billion in structured investments and annuities last year, iCapital said late last month that it would enter the annuities market.
As user numbers and trading activity fell from record highs set last year, Robinhood shares have fallen more than 83 percent, encapsulating the crazy year on the stock market. Robinhood, which was conspicuously absent from this year’s list, lost its eligibility after coming Public in July at an astounding $30 billion valuation. Socially minded neobank Aspiration, which announced in August that it would go public through a particular purpose acquisition company, also declines, despite not having yet started trading.
Instead of them, Public.com, a stockbroker, makes its Fintech 50 debut less than three years after its September 2019 start. The Public’s user base has approximately risen to 3 million over the previous year, thanks to investments from billionaire Shari Redstone, NFL player JJ Watt, and influencer Casey Neistat. This year, the platform added support for non-fungible tokens, art, real estate, cryptocurrencies, and other assets, rapidly expanding its services beyond equities.
The 401(k) administrator Guideline, which brought in more than $6 billion in assets in April, and the mobile app Stash, which now provides cryptocurrencies in addition to its investing, banking, and retirement options, are other companies that have returned to the Fintech 50 this year.
Here are the most innovative investing companies in the fintech
Guideline
Administers 401(k) programmers for small businesses for an $8 per participant employee base charge + $49 monthly. Partners with companies that offer payroll services, such as Square, Intuit, Gusto, and ADP. We started providing SEP IRAs for the self-employed in April. Growth is being aided by new state legislation, such as California’s requirement that companies with five or more employees implement a retirement savings plan by June 30.
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
Funding: $344 million from General Atlantic, Generation Investment Management, Greyhound Capital and others
Latest valuation: $1.15 billion
Bona fides: Administers more than 30,000 small business 401(k) s, up 50% over last year.
Cofounders: CEO Kevin Busque, 43, previously cofounded freelance labour marketplace TaskRabbit; CTO Mike Nelson, 34; chief product officer Jeremy Caballero, 39.
iCapital
iCapital provides its “white label” service to more than 140 businesses, including Blackstone, The Carlyle Group, Brookfield, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Goldman Sachs. This includes connecting more than 10,000 financial advisors and hundreds of thousands of high-net-worth clients to private equity, private debt, venture capital, real estate, and hedge funds with as little as $25,000 invested per fund.
Headquarters: New York City
Funding: $765 million from BlackRock, WestCap, Temasek and others
Latest valuation: $6 billion
Bona fides: Assets invested through the platform have swelled to some $125 billion, up about 70% in one year, thanks partly to expansions across Europe and Asia.
Cofounders: CEO Lawrence Calcano, 59, a 17-year veteran of Goldman Sachs; managing partners Dan Vene, 46, and Nick Veronis, 57.
Public.com
The brokerage app allows commission-free trading in stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrency. It also allows users to trade fractionally in NFTs and other collectables and share their portfolios and trades if they like. Last year, Public.com introduced an optional tipping function and ceased paying for order flow, a contentious practice that free-trading competitors like Robinhood continue to use. A “Pulse” service, which enables businesses looking to advertise their stocks to pay for information on individual investors and to organize town halls, was introduced in April as another new income stream. Tilray, a popular cannabis stock, and Swvl, a ride-hailing company in Dubai, are among the early clients.
Headquarters: New York City
Funding: $310 million from Accel, Greycroft, Tiger Global Management and others
Latest valuation: $1.2 billion
Bona fides: The user base has exploded to three million from less than one million at the end of 2020.
Cofounders: Co-CEOs Jannick Malling, 34, and Leif Abraham, 36—serial entrepreneurs from Denmark and Germany, respectively.
Stash
Stash101, which provides free educational resources for kids, teachers, and parents, was renamed from PayGrade, a platform for financial literacy; last summer after Stash purchased it. It launched Smart Portfolio in January; a Stash-managed portfolio tailored to each investor’s risk appetite, with a $5 minimum investment and a 4–6% allocation to cryptocurrencies. For a fixed monthly charge ranging from $1 to $9, Stash’s app provides fractional investment in stocks and ETFs, IRAs, bank accounts, and a debit card that delivers incentives in the form of fractional shares back on purchases. Over 500,000 customers have already invested money in Smart Portfolios.
Headquarters: New York City
Funding: $467 million from Union Square Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Eldridge Industries and others
Latest valuation: $1.3 billion
Bona fides: Revenue grew 65% to $86 million in 2021, while paying customers grew from 1.8 million to 2.4 million.
Cofounders: CEO Brandon Krieg, 47, and president Ed Robinson, 38, met working on Macquarie’s electronic trading team.
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