Aussie fintech Lumiant continues U.S. expansion with $3M investment from Savant Wealth Management: Wealthtech Weekly

June 2, 2022 12:07 PM

Savant CEO Brent Brodeski and Lumiant U.S. CEO Blake Wood

Less than two weeks removed from making its stateside debut, Australian fintech Lumiant is celebrating the next step of its U.S. expansion with a major investment from one of the nation’s top billion dollar wealth magnets.

Lumiant has secured a $3 million investment from Savant Wealth Management, the Rockford, Illinois-based RIA with more than $13.5 billion in assets under management. Complete details of the deal were not disclosed, but it includes Savant owning a minority stake in the startup and Savant CEO Brent Brodeski joining Lumiant’s board of directors.

Brodeski will join Gavin Spitzner, president at Wealth Consulting Partners, and Matthew Brinker, managing partner at Merchant Investment Management and a former United Capital executive, on the Lumiant board.

“We're super excited … for years we've been frustrated because while there is a decent amount of fintech in our industry, it's all focused on investments and accounting in almost all regards,” Savant CEO and founder Brent Brodeski told Financial Planning. “But there has never been anything that addresses what our clients really care about, which is what is my ideal future? What is my best life?

“I think our industry has been very derelict in being very investment and numbers focused, and frankly, clients don't really care about that. What they care about is am I OK, what can I accomplish and what can my family accomplish?”

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Founded in 2020, Lumiant has developed an engagement platform that aims to deepen client relationships by families first. The company’s leaders say they want to help advisors more easily merge a client’s personal goals and financial goals by placing a greater emphasis on life outcomes.

Lumiant also extends the planning conversation beyond whoever may be considered head of the household by removing key person dependency and focusing more on family members like the “non-financial spouse.” To accomplish this, the company’s software tracks and measures goals that have more to do with values, ideals and aspirations than dollars and cents.

In the wake of the news, there was shared excitement from Brodeski and Lumiant’s newly named U.S. CEO Blake Wood.

Wood said Savant is the perfect strategic partner for Lumiant, noting that Savant’s approach, values, and interests align closely with their own. He added that the Lumiant team is eager to leverage Savant’s experience to continue to develop solutions for advisors as it establishes its brand in the United States.

“It's a greater sense of responsibility because we have a big firm that's placed a bet of confidence in us. At the same time, it helps us get out of our own echo chamber,” Wood said. “As technologists, most of us haven't been advisors. But now we have their team and advisors as sounding boards, and we start rolling this out. It’s huge to have them as a vested partner that's not looking at us like another vendor platform. They are in it with us, co-creating and helping us understand the market.”

Scroll down to get caught up on other recent fintech news you might have missed in our Wealthtech Weekly recap. And check out last week’s recap here.

GeoWealth and JPMorgan’s 55ip partner to provide tax technology

Midwest TAMP GeoWealth is bolstering its position as an enterprise technology solution for RIAs by entering a strategic partnership with software firm 55ip.

Acquired by JP Morgan in late 2020, 55ip applies tax management technology to model portfolios. GeoWealth President Colin Falls said his company has received feedback from clients and prospects that efficient tax management is of high importance, and he believes the partnership with 55ip will help meet those needs.

Market volatility, the potential for rising tax impacts and lowering return expectations are some of reasons investors are looking to their advisors for tailored solutions. Falls adds the partnership allows GeoWealth to provide those solutions without slowing down the flow of daily business.

“If you think about really any tax, direct indexing, ESG, automated SMA resources … anytime you use one of those resources, you have to go to an independent silo. So you're using your core system but for 5, 10, 15 or 20%of your business, you have to go to a third party,” Falls told Financial Planning. “Advisors who use our platform can literally run their entire business, never leave our system and have a fully integrated workflow because the tax technology is integrated in the back end, and we're actually still trading all the model portfolios. There's no disruption to your broader business.”

GeoWealth’s full lineup of resources includes tax transition and automated tax overlay services, an advisor resource service center, mid- and back-office automation, performance reporting, billing, portfolio accounting and more.

The TAMP supports both advisor-managed models and a suite of third-party models from leading asset managers. In the coming months, 55ip’s tax transition and tax overlay services will be available via a select group of models in GeoWealth’s Model Center.

“Our partnership with GeoWealth aligns perfectly with our goal of empowering advisors to drive better outcomes for their clients by providing tax-efficient solutions,” Paul Gamble, CEO of 55ip, said in a statement. “The mission at 55ip is to become the industry standard for tax-smart investment management, and our partnership with GeoWealth is an important step on that journey.”

Envestnet acquires 401kplans.com to boost retirement solutions

Top financial planning fintech Envestnet has made another move to push further into retirement planning.

This week, Envestnet announced its acquisition of a digital 401(k) retirement plan marketplace 401kplans.com. Company leaders say the deal underscores Envestnet's commitment to the retirement plan industry and to “investing in technologies and solutions that enhance its financial wellness ecosystem.”

The news follows the recent appointment of Sean Murray as head of retirement in November of 2021, and the mid-May announcement that Envestnet Retirement Solutions has partnered with Kestra Financial, an Austin, Texas-based wealth management platform, to launch a Retirement Plan Enterprise.

"401(k) plans remain the primary savings vehicle for 60 million American workers, yet advisors are often reluctant to incorporate them as part of their practices and holistic planning processes,” Andrew Stavaridis, chief relationship officer of Envestnet, said in a statement. “By bringing 401kplans.com into our retirement offering, we can create a more seamless experience for advisors to shop, benchmark and screen investments for their retirement plan clients."

Officials say the 401kplans.com digital marketplace walks advisors through a documented due diligence process when considering plan providers. The platform enables advisors to eliminate time-consuming manual proposal requests, compare recordkeepers and evaluate investment options.

Founded by 28-year industry veteran Scott Buffington in 2016, 401kplans.com has grown to nearly 28,000 advisors with accounts on the platform and working relationships with many of the largest broker-dealers. Through this acquisition, Buffington joins Envestnet as head of retirement sales.

Envestnet manages retirement asset data from more than 200,000 retirement plans.

"What would typically take advisors several weeks to complete can now be accomplished in a matter of minutes with a couple of clicks on our digital platform," Buffington said in a statement. "This offering is unmatched in the industry and serves as a platform for all advisors — from retirement plan novices to industry veterans — to help them efficiently find the best providers, assess fees, and select appropriate investments for their clients."

United Planners and cleverDome launch new cybersecurity offering

United Planners Financial Services and cleverDome are collaborating to introduce a private network cybersecurity solution designed to shield both financial advisors and their clients from attacks.

United Planners’ DefendUP Platform has been taken off the open internet and secured thanks to cleverDome tech that protects confidential consumer information by taking that information "under the dome," as they say.

By leveraging private networks, another barrier of protection is placed between would-be attackers and the most private information retained by wealth managers.

“Transmission of data between best-in-class technology vendors, advisors, their staff and the back office is fast, smooth, stable, secure and reliable,” Sheila Cuffari-Agasi, executive vice president and chief revenue officer of United Planners, said in a statement. “Advisors can rest assured knowing their client data is safe, protected and off the open internet when doing business with United Planners.”

Mike Hallett, CEO of cleverDome, said the pairing allows wealth management and legal firms to leverage the internet in a safe fashion. He said cleverDome’s solution is an always-on solution that “materially trumps the benefit of VPN” by providing more control.

“We encourage other vendors to join the private network to provide this vital and maximum-security solution to their clients and advisors,” Hallet said in a statement.

United Planners and cleverDome have partnered with Orion, Redtail and others to include their infrastructure in this private network. This step addresses the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency guidance published in mid-May.

The CISA alert encourages companies to adopt zero-trust security models that eliminate implicit trust in any one element, node or service. Instead, continuous verification of the operational picture via real-time information from multiple sources to determine access and other system responses is required.

The CISA alert also made note of security issues associated with traditional VPN solutions, including lack of sufficient controls to prevent unauthorized access. In recent years, malicious actors have been targeting remote services, and network defenders can reduce the risk of remote service compromise by adding access control mechanisms.