By David Tuckwell on Monday 24 July 2017
A huge valuation for a startup in an emerging field
A weekly roundup of robo-advice news, from around the world.
Betterment has been valued at $800 million, showing that ‘pure robo advisors’ (and startups) can make it big. In fact, it has been one success story after the other for the company, which just completed a $70 million funding round.
One factor driving robo is millennials. Why? Partly the fees, of course. But also because robo startups are adopting Socially Responsible Investment criteria faster than the rest of the financial services industry, which the young find important. Robo-advisers' success on this front may hold lessons for traditional advisors.
How big and how influential robo-advice will turn out to be is anyone’s guess. But for now, polling data shows that robo's significance is in the eye of the beholder. Retail bankers don’t think too highly of robo. Wealth advisers, meanwhile, think robo could be a real game-changer.
25 June 2021
Oliver Smith