Startup Spotlight #30: Save and Invest
Today's featured startup is aiming to make life easier for financial advisors.
Project Overview
Financial advisors are in a lucrative line of work, managing an astonishing $100 trillion in assets globally. While they excel at advising their current clients, finding new ones is whole different story. On average, a financial advisor spends a whopping 58 hours talking to the wrong prospects before landing a new client.
FINNY is here to change that. This platform helps financial advisors find potential clients faster and more efficiently.
Here’s the thing: people come into money through predictable and recurring life events, and these events leave digital footprints. Not everyone leaving such a footprint will need financial advice, but those who do are more likely to have left one.
For example:
• Small business sales: Around 200,000 small businesses are sold annually in the U.S., often leaving former owners with significant liquid assets.
• Marriage: 2 million people get married each year, bringing new financial challenges like managing joint assets or saving for a home.
• Divorce: With 700,000 divorces annually, financial tasks like splitting assets or budgeting for child support arise.
• Job changes: 600,000 Americans switch to higher-paying jobs each year, creating opportunities for wealth management.
• Retirement: 4 million retirees annually need advice as their financial goals shift.
• Moving: 30 million people relocate yearly, prompting financial concerns like buying or selling property.
FINNY uses AI to track these life events by analyzing data from LinkedIn, social media, government registries, and other sources. Advisors can search for prospects using parameters such as job changes, marital status, education, location, and even LinkedIn profiles, tailoring their outreach based on their specific services.
The platform ranks potential clients by the likelihood of a successful deal, considering their similarity to existing clients and the advisor’s profile. Think of it as a matchmaking app but for financial advisors and their prospects.
Advisors can then reach out themselves or let FINNY’s AI handle initial contact, answer questions, and schedule meetings directly into their calendar. For those who prefer more control, FINNY prepares personalized email drafts, referencing relevant details about each prospect to increase the likelihood of engagement.
Launched from Y Combinator in September, FINNY secured $500,000 in seed funding and already works with 40 advisors, with 250 more on the waitlist. The platform charges subscription fees and commissions on closed deals. Since its launch, monthly revenue has doubled, impressing investors enough to raise an additional $4.3 million in funding.
What’s the Gist?
What inspired the founders of FINNY to focus on financial advisors? Several key trends shaped their vision:
The Great Wealth Transfer: An estimated $80 trillion in assets is beginning to pass from aging owners to their heirs, many of whom lack experience managing wealth. These inheritors will likely need professional advice, creating a significant opportunity for financial advisors to step in and build relationships with this new generation of asset holders.
The aging financial advisor workforce: A significant portion of U.S. financial advisors — about 45,000 — are over the age of 65 and approaching retirement. These advisors currently manage assets worth $3 trillion. As they leave the industry, younger professionals will take over, introducing opportunities for fresh talent to establish connections with clients navigating financial transitions.
Emerging new wealth: A surge of new wealth is being generated in industries like startups and the creator economy. People working in these areas often face challenges managing their finances during periods of rapid growth, making them an ideal audience for financial advisors who can help them navigate and preserve their newfound wealth.
Rising competition: Private equity funds are increasingly competing with independent advisors by managing client assets directly. This forces advisors to differentiate themselves and work harder to find and retain clients.
Revenue from referrals: Beyond offering advice, financial advisors earn substantial commissions — often up to 25% — from financial institutions for referring clients. These commissions are paid not as a one-time fee but as ongoing revenue throughout the client’s lifetime. During the $80 trillion wealth transfer, this referral market—worth $200 billion annually — presents another lucrative opportunity for advisors and platforms like FINNY to capture.
But FINNY isn’t the only startup riding the wave of AI-enabled platforms transforming how businesses find clients. Similar innovations are emerging in other industries:
• Openmart: This startup, also a Y Combinator graduate, created an AI-driven database of small local businesses. Federal and regional vendors can use it to identify potential clients, including newly opened businesses. Openmart recently raised $2.75 million to expand its offerings.
• Resquared: Another Y Combinator alum, Resquared, specializes in helping local businesses connect with service providers. Their AI platform raised $5 million this year to automate outreach and client acquisition.
• OffDeal: Originally focused on identifying local businesses for acquisition, this startup pivoted to helping these businesses find buyers. Its AI continues to analyze deal patterns and prepare transactions, earning fees from both sides of the marketplace.
These examples highlight a broader trend: AI-powered platforms are reshaping how sellers across industries—from financial services to local business marketplaces — discover, engage, and close deals with potential clients. FINNY stands out by applying this model to the highly lucrative world of financial advisory, where the stakes (and rewards) are higher than ever.
Key Takeaways
The U.S. remains the largest market for financial advisors, boasting 330,000 professionals serving a population of 335 million. However, untapped opportunities exist in developing nations with growing economies and increasing demand for financial expertise.
Countries like India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, and others combine large populations, rising GDP per capita, and emerging financial literacy — a recipe for expanding the financial advisory market. These regions are ripe for AI-driven platforms like FINNY to support advisors and clients alike.
Plus, FINNY’s model demonstrates how AI can transform client acquisition, not just in wealth management but across industries. As platforms like FINNY, Openmart, and Resquared gain traction, they signal an exciting shift in how businesses connect with customers in a digital-first world.
So, here’s a question: if you had a platform like FINNY, which industry would you tackle, and where would you begin?
Company info
FINNY
Website: https://www.finnyai.com/
Last funding round: $4.3 million, 11.12.2024
Total funds raised: $4.8 million over 2 rounds