AI investment platform Tifin raises $109 million in Series D

Tifin, an AI-driven platform for wealth management and investors, has raised $109 million in a Series D financing round led by New York-listed investment manager Franklin Resources and technology investment firm Motive Partners, pushing the company’s total valuation to $842 million.

The new funding will allow the fintech to focus on developing the consumer platform of its search-powered investment marketplace, Magifi; its distribution platform for asset and wealth managers, Distill, its AI-powered analytics and geographic expansion outside the US and other fintech innovation initiatives.

“Hyper-personalised experiences are critical for the future of investment management as individuals demand more engaging and digitally intuitive approaches,” said Dr Vinay Nair, founder and CEO of TIFIN.

“At TIFIN, we are building algorithms to enable this within various wealth and investment journeys, while using natural language processing and conversational AI to simplify the user experience.

“At the same time, we are enabling digital distribution for our asset management clients using targeted, data-driven and end-to-end automation.”

The latest funding round is the group’s most successful capital raise, having raised $22m, $22.3m, and $47m in Series A, B and C, respectively.

It also boosts the company’s $447m valuation from its Series C round.

The new backers join previous Series B and C round participants Broadridge, JP Morgan, Morningstar, and Hamilton Lane.

As part of the transaction, Rob Heyvaert, managing partner of Motive Partners will also join the TIFIN board.

“As we focus on identifying and growing value within the financial technology sector, it is critical to have an eye on the emerging technologies that can play a crucial role in the reinvention across the industry,” said Rob Heyvaert.

“Tifin’s pedigree in overlaying data & analytics to drive personalisation improvements across businesses is just one area that we believe will be essential in building further value within our portfolio companies.”

Tifin makes moves for growth

The sizeable investment comes at the heels of Tifin’s two recent acquisitions of investor education platforms, All Star Charts and INO.com, for its subsidiary, Financial Answers, a digital platform for investor communities.

Most recently, in December, the subsidiary also acquired another education platform, investors Alley, which at the time recorded more than 700,000 monthly investors.

Beyond the acquisitions, the AI-driven fintech has been expanding its services and partnerships in the last 12 months, justifying its need for new funding.

In April, investor Harbor Capital Advisors partnered with Tifin to use the latter’s analytics platform, Distill, for improved insights to better engage with clients.

Tifin’s AI-powered client engagement platform, Clout, had also attracted partnerships from Commonwealth Financial Network and Sanctuary Wealth two months prior.

That same month, the company announced that its WealthTech division, TIFIN Wealth, was combining its several capabilities, including risk profiling, micro-planning, financial personality, next best action, and trading automation, to launch TIFIN Grow.

Tech-savvy investors drive interest in wealthtech

Tifin is among several digital wealth management fintech firms expanding their services in recent months as financial institutions attempt to attract millennial and tech-savvy investors.

According to the latest survey by Refinitiv, 64% of millennials and 51% in the 35-54 age bracket were willing to pay more for personalised investing products and services. Furthermore, 35% of millennials and 34% in the 35-54 age brackets considered wealth managers’ digital capabilities when choosing a provider.

The increasing investment in hyper-personalised services, as offered by TIFIN, also underscores the anticipated growth in the wealth management platforms market.

Consultant IMARC Group projects the wealth management platforms market to reach $8.25bn in value by 2027 – up from the $3.8bn volume in 2021.

Only last month, digital wealth management platform Unifimoney raised $10 million in seed funding to expand its alternative assets offerings to include NFTs, among other millennial-targeted products.

It also upgraded its ledger system with Episode Six’s real-time intelligence capability and allow seamless integration of new products.

Earlier this month, digital investment platform Scalable Capital also launched eight new investment products comprising ETFs, exchange-traded securities for cryptocurrencies and ETCs, expanding its digital wealth management service.

Peer Orion Advisor Solutions also announced the expansion of its wealth management operations with the ongoing acquisition of TownSquare Capital, an investment and trading platform.

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