Data-sharing startup Dispatch rebrands after $8M funding round

Less than two years after its launch, a wealth management technology company that shares data across software applications changed its name and secured $8 million in seed funding.

Dispatch, which switched its name from OneAdvisory, picked up the new financing on top of a pre-seed influx of $2.6 million in a round led by venture capital firm F-Prime Capital with participation from new investors including The Compound Capital Fund I, a fund established through Ritholtz Wealth Management, and Flyover Capital, a private vehicle owned by Mariner Wealth Advisors, the firm said on Jan. 11. Dispatch's technology enables financial advisors and their clients to easily transmit data between platforms and services when opening accounts, saving the time often spent filling out multiple forms with the same information.

With the proliferation of technology solutions aiding advisors and their teams, more wealth management executives are realizing that "getting their client data from system to system becomes really hard," Dispatch CEO Rob Nance said in an interview. Dispatch gives advisory practices an edge by speeding the client onboarding process toward quicker organic growth, giving client service associates more time to work directly with customers rather than entering data, and finding greater efficiencies across the various software providers and their platforms.

"Our job is to not change anything that an advisor does today but to help them," Nance said, citing the headache of working across multiple custodians, customer relationship management software, planning platforms and billing and reporting services. "We can help sync all of that data in real time so that, any time they make a change in a single application, it makes the change everywhere."

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In recent years, client onboarding has emerged as an especially important area for an expansion-focused industry seeking to sign up more customers quickly in a way that's compliant with the rules for personal data and much faster than the traditional manual entry. Giant firms like Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments are among many wealth management companies investing resources toward tech upgrades in onboarding. That specific need loomed large as a factor in Northwestern Mutual's custodial contract renewal with BNY Mellon's Pershing, according to Jim Crowley, the global head of Pershing.  

Assisting advisors and their teams in getting more clients signed into the relevant platforms at a higher rate is "one of the things that we are very focused on," Crowley said in an interview.

"They spend way too much of their time doing administrative things, particularly around client onboarding," he said, citing many discussions between the firms about reducing the burden of various operating processes. "Client onboarding is probably the No. 1 item on that list as it relates to Northwestern Mutual."

That problem is leading to major investments toward a potential solution. Dispatch got the pre-seed funding in August 2022, roughly five months after its launch. In the latest round, the firm raked in bets on its technology from funds linked with two of the most prominent names in the RIA industry in Ritholtz and Mariner.

"In the financial services sector, the challenge of overseeing client data across disparate systems is significant," Mariner CEO Marty Bicknell said in a statement. "Dispatch addresses this pain point by eliminating manual data input and establishing a bidirectional sync across wealth platforms which creates valuable efficiencies for organizations of any size and makes life easier for both client and advisor."

Executives at Ritholtz "believe in transforming the advisor's desktop so that both the advisor and client experience can meet and surpass expectations," Managing Partner Michael Batnick said in a statement. "Dispatch is treating client data as the connective tissue that automatically syncs and updates across the entire tech stack, ultimately making what has been a complex task simple."

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Besides those two funds, prior investors Fika Ventures, Great Oaks and Twelve Below participated in the seed round alongside new capital from CoFound Partners and Valor Equity Partners. Dispatch will spend the capital on hiring more engineers, building more client-service tools and striking additional partnerships with other wealth software companies, according to Nance. The company shifted its name from OneAdvisory to Dispatch to reflect the fact that its technology is "sending data with purpose very quickly," he said.

"We don't require advisors to learn to use a new application. We believe that you don't have to build a new app to work with us," Nance said. "Our goal is not to disrupt what advisors do, but give them a much better experience using the software they love."