scale | wealthtech
TRANSCRIPT
Scale | WealthTechCohort overviewMay 2021
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In collaboration with:
PwC | Growth Builders
Innovations are creating new challenges and opportunities for businesses, and we believe it is vital to recognise and collaborate with fast growth scale-up technologies for the benefit of the sector. The Scale Programmes provide the missing link between large organisations and the scale-ups on their growth journey. Our programmes are designed to connect high-quality scale-ups who are ready to scale with large progressive organisations looking to embrace new technologies and pioneering new services.
Scale | Programmes
9 Scale-ups
£43m Funded
237 Employees
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“It gives me great pleasure to announce our cohort of nine innovative WealthTech companies identified by us as having great potential to scale within the wealth industry.
FinTechs are increasingly essential to our economy and crucial to future innovation for Financial Services.
Our 2021 Scale programme enables high-potential scale-ups to accelerate their growth by opening the door to new opportunities. We welcome our WealthTech cohort and look forward to working with them.”
William Conner, PwC Partner
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PwC | Growth Builders
Company Overview Page
3rd Eyes Analytics empowers financial institutions to deliver goal-based investing with realistic and scenario-based asset liability management methods, integrating sustainable investing beyond regulatory requirements.
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Clear Macro selects, analyzes, synthesizes, and beautifully presents macro and thematic data that allows institutional investors and corporates to make better investment decisions and expand coverage.
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Conser is a pioneering third-party ESG verifier who have developed the ESG Consensus (R), a unique and innovative digital tool to measure and improve the impact and sustainability of investments portfolios.
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Creative Mass delivers WealthConnect. The World’s First all-in-one wealth enterprise solution based on Salesforce seamlessly integrating the customer first principles of the world’s leading CRM platform with modern technology delivery.
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Datactics provides business user-focused, no-code data quality and matching tools giving wealth and asset managers fast access to trusted, ready-to-use data Link
My Compliance Centre provides regulated financial institutions with an integrated platform to manage their core compliance activities Link
Novastone is bringing customer centricity back to financial services allowing relationship managers and client service teams to chat directly to clients using personalised secure messaging.
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Opus Nebula provides investment firms, wealth managers and asset servicers with a world-class reporting solution without the costly overhead of managing, maintaining and developing the reporting system themselves.
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Tiller delivers digital solutions to the wealth industry for firms that want to perfect their client journey. From automated onboarding, to digital advice, through to digital client portal
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Meet the cohort
Our cohort have been carefully selected as high potential, product ready companies who are rapidly scaling.
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The companies have been working alongside PwC and GrowthBuilders to further progress their growth journey. They have received support from sales and marketing experts, guidance from senior executives within PwC, and extensive opportunities to engage with decision-makers from some of the world’s leading brands and enterprises.
The companies are asking for your support as they continue to scale, so if they are useful for your role, your business or your wider network, please get in touch!
PwC | Growth Builders
3rd-Eyes Analytics
Next-Generation Wealth Planning: Instant. Realistic. Individual. Sustainable.
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Overview
We believe that each person is unique and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, many financial institutions still consider standardisation a prerequisite for automation, e.g. regarding the limited number of the strategic asset allocations they offer to their clients.With our professional ALM engine, we pioneer the hyper-personalisation of wealth planning and, as such, help financial institutions to improve the quality of wealth planning while fully automating it. This enables them to offer wealth planning to all segments in a cost-effective manner, to better advise their clients, and to position themselves as the trusted advisor across all of their clients’ banking relationships.The IRIS in our logo describes our Wealth Planning capabilities: SaaS/API-based Wealth Planning that is Instant, Realistic, Individual and Sustainable. Our comprehensive capabilities in SI go beyond the requirements of the EU Action Plan and allow for example modelling the impact of rising temperatures on clients’ wealth development and goal achievement.
Use cases and benefits
Our modern IT architecture allows us to support various use cases across the whole wealth management value chain. The following projects have been executed successfully with our clients:
● Re-design and rollout of a new advisory process that starts with wealth planning for private clients and that is fully MiFID II compliant; project duration of 6 months with significant customisation efforts.
● Rollout of a solution that converts unknown website visitors into identified leads by illustrating their need for action re. their pension gap.
● Rollout of a new advisory process for institutional clients of an asset manager based on professional ALM optimisations; the same client uses the solution also for its own ALM optimisation in the treasury department, incl. our climate change simulator, Co2 footprint and ESG risk reporting.
Business model
Our revenue model consists mostly of recurring revenues from subscription fees (SaaS/API based pricing model). Of lesser importance are customisation fees that we charge to adapt the solutions to the specific need of financial institutions.
The ask
We would like to connect with mid-to large-sized banks, life & pension providers, and wealth managers. Ideal contact persons are C-Level individuals responsible for Digital Transformation of the Front Office / Advisory Process / Offering Design, and Heads of Marketing who are responsible for inbound lead creation.
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Head of Business Development: Marc MettlerFounded: 2015Employees: 21Funding: £3.6MHQ: Zurich, Switzerland
www.3rd-eyes.com
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PwC | Growth Builders
ClearMacro
FutureProof Fund Management. Easily integrate hybrid quant solutions to improve investment returns, consistency and coverage.
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Overview
Many investment companies lack credible data strategies and the capabilities which are required to improve their idea generation and risk-taking and thereby mitigate emerging industry challenges (disruption from passives/ ETFs, regulatory burden, costs, diminishing performance).
ClearMacro is designed by former institutional investors for institutional investors, as well as for corporates (e.g. treasury, M&A). We enable decision-makers to incorporate the insights derived from a vast range of rapidly changing data and cutting-edge quantitative techniques into what would otherwise be mainly qualitative investment decision processes.
We optimise macroeconomic, thematic, and factor investment decision-making; ultimately improving investment performance, expanding coverage, and increasing transparency and consistency over time.
Use cases and benefits
• Strategic Asset Allocation and Investment Performance Benchmarking: providing real-time capital market return estimates over any horizon.
• Total Fund Management or individual institutional Funds/Portfolios overlay: Tactically optimising overall beta & country risk.
• Idea Generation for individual institutional Funds/Portfolios: Automatically generating and ranking macro/thematic investment ideas across asset classes, geographies, sectors, and time horizons.
• Team investment decision-making processes: generating automated decks to drive better Investment Committee meetings.
• Systematic investment strategies: rapidly building new systematic portfolios and/or broadening opportunity-sets.
• Standalone Risk Mitigation Fund/Portfolio: automated sizing and mix.• Counterparty and Liquidity Risk: proactively predicting changes in the risk
profile of firm's counterparties; enabling proactive mitigation of emerging risks.• Private Asset class investment opportunity review: real-time country risk
assessment to accelerate decision-making and facilitate risk monitoring.• Treasury Management optimisation (for corporations): improve FX outcomes.
Business model
Revenue Model: Saas licenses recurring revenue. To be augmented by usage-based pricing for certain new modules/segments.
The ask
We would like to connect with: 1. Chief Investment Officers, Heads of Allocation and Macro Portfolio
Managers from large Asset Management Companies or Pension Funds.2. Delivery Groups (providing macro and thematic content to end
customers) from large UK and Europe-based Wealth Management firms.3. CFOs, Chief Strategy officers in other international corporates.4. Macro and Strategy research teams in Banks and NeoBanks.
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Co-CEO: Niall BolandFounded: 2014Employees: 20Funding: Between series A & B (NDA)HQ: London, UK
clearmacro.com
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PwC | Growth Builders
Conser Invest SA
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CEO: Angela DewolffFounded: 2007Employees: 5Funding: BootstrappedHQ: Geneva, Switzerland
Conser is an independent ESG verifier, reinforcing trust between asset owners and asset managers by establishing transparency as a core value.
www.conser.ch
Overview
Conser is an independent consulting company, dedicated to sustainable investing. We are pioneers in independent, third-party, ESG verification.
Conser has developed a unique and innovative ESG digital tool to measure and improve the impact and sustainability of portfolios. This systematic and automated methodology is based on quantitative and qualitative ESG data, as well as an in-depth knowledge of traditional and sustainable investments.
By establishing transparency as a core value, Conser aims to create trust between asset owners and asset managers.
Use cases and benefits
Convinced by the neutrality and the value-added of our ESG Consensus® Methodology, Groupe Mutuel, a Swiss major Insurance Company has mandated Conser to analyse the sustainability of its investment portfolio.
Together with the Board, Conser first drew an investment charter, reflecting the Company’s value. We then performed an in-depth audit of its investments’ portfolio, identifying, among others, CO2 intensity, exposure to major controversies, as well as commitment to invest in companies generating a positive impact on the society and the environment.
The Company is committed to transparency and will proceed to an annual check and communicate openly on the ESG quality of its investments.
Business model
Conser has successfully worked with over 80 institutional clients since it was founded. As the independent ESG verifier, Conser’s role is to facilitate the transactions between Asset managers and Asset owners, by providing a neutral, unbiased Portfolio Check. For this quarterly analysis, Conser charges a per fund fee.
Conser’s current challenge is to scale up the company to reach an international dimension and enhance the fintech profile. To seize this opportunity, Conser has formed a joint-venture, Canopia, with an established digital service provider to offer dynamic ESG information based on a web portal. This multi-manager, ongoing dynamic solution is offered against yearly subscription.
The ask
We would like to meet with Asset Owners (including Pension Funds, Family Offices and Public & Private Foundations), large UK and Europe-based Banks and Asset Managers, global Insurance Companies and large UK-based Financial Platforms.
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PwC | Growth Builders
Creativemass
Overview
WealthConnect (wholly owned by Creativemass) delivers the world’s first wealth and advice platform based solely on Salesforce – seamlessly integrating the customer first principles of the world’s leading CRM platform with modern technology delivery.
WealthConnect simplifies enterprise technology stacks and, through its open API framework, allows for complete data integration and aggregation across multiple business divisions, resulting in a single view of the client across your entire business.
The platform produces a significant uplift in revenue via sophisticated client engagement while delivering core financial services such as strategic planning and portfolio management. We enable many world-firsts in automation of key processes in compliance, client onboarding, reporting/analytics and practice/workflow management, helping to reduce the cost to serve for clients.
Use cases and benefits
“There are four overarching business problems WealthConnect solves. The first is a framework for productivity and risk reduction through best of breed compliance. The second is an unmatched client experience, combining convenience with security. The third is agility – the ability to pivot quickly to avoid a pothole or take advantage of an opportunity. And finally, scalability supports a lower cost to serve, continued top line growth and the optionality to extend the business in ways that simply are not possible without the right infrastructure and right tech partner. These four dimensions all pointed us toward WealthConnect”. – Andrew Rutherford (COO, Koda Capital. Formerly COO Goldman Sachs JB Were)
Business Model
Creativemass derives revenue primarily from software licensing. Broken into three editions growing from Base to Advanced to Professional, depending upon the users’ functional requirement.
The business also offers a tiered support service to compliment the change and training aspect of implementation. Focusing on a train-the-trainer approach, support is then tiered by issue complexity with all support managed in house.
Creativemass also offers access to a bespoke client portal for each client to provide a secure, online interactive portal to substantially increase a client’s engagement with their adviser.
The ask
We would like to connect with UK-based, multinational Wealth & Asset Managers, Broker Dealers and Investment Management companies.
“Founder: Michael RouseFounded: 2018Employees: 54Funding: £12MHQ: Melbourne, Australia
The world’s first Wealth and Advice platform based solely on Salesforce. The Future of Financial Services, Delivered Today.
https://www.creativemass.com/
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PwC | Growth Builders
Datactics
Overview
Our self-service data quality platform is already adding value at leading global financial organisations, enabling data management teams to own and maintain an enterprise data quality solution without relying on programming expertise. We are seeking to capitalise on recent successes with major wealth and asset management clients and extend our reach into the wider wealth and asset management market. As these firms mature in terms of how they manage data and build out centralised teams and data governance practices, they require robust data quality management as part of an overall data governance toolbox. That is exactly what we provide: a dedicated Data Quality & Matching platform installed within a client environment that measures and reports on the quality of data according to industry standard dimensions and also empowers business users or data stewards to fix or remediate the data which they know best.
Use cases and benefits
A large UK Wealth Manager had a goal to measure the quality of all of their critical data elements and distribute responsibility for fixing the broken data to all of the data stewards / owners across the organisation. The challenges they had in achieving this were:
● Large volume of data elements to measure● Regionally-driven operating model● Non-programming data team ● Business end users / data subject matter experts
Datactics went head-to-head versus Informatica in a competitive POC and was selected due to; the usability of the platform and the remediation capabilities. The Datactics ‘no-code’ data quality platform was implemented and is operated by business users who are close to day-to-day activities which allows them to create and maintain rules themselves without dependency on IT development resource.
Business model
The software platform is offered on an annual subscription licence model, typically three years, that includes maintenance and support. Implementation and training services are offered and delivered by our experienced client services team. Daily rate card for clients to avail of specialist Datactics consultants and training resources based on the client’s need.
We are focused on selling licences for the platform and are not a professional services company, instead we provide specialist technical resource to assist with production implementation and knowledge transfer. We often partner with consultancy firms like PwC to deliver wraparound services as part of a broader program of work.
The ask
We are looking to connect with Chief Data Officers & Data Management teams, Client Onboarding teams and Regulatory Reporting teams from multinational Wealth & Asset Management Firms, global Investment Management Firms and UK-based Financial Services Companies.
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Head of Sales: Kieran SeawardFounded: 1999Employees: 55 Funding: £5MHQ: Belfast, UK
Datactics provides user-focused, no-code data quality and matching tools giving wealth and asset managers fast access to trusted, ready-to-use data.
www.datactics.com
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PwC | Growth Builders
My Compliance Centre
Overview
Our mission is to strengthen compliance governance in companies that are regulated for financial services, by modernising the way they manage their compliance.
Up to now, regtech has offered discrete solutions in areas such as anti-money laundering and regulatory reporting. There has not been a solution that supports the daily activities carried out by compliance functions. Instead, firms manage their compliance using a myriad of different Excel worksheets and documents.
My Compliance Centre™ has been designed by and for compliance professionals to fill this gap. As suitable for small and medium sized firms as it is for larger groups of companies, it replaces current archaic systems with a sophisticated, yet simple to use compliance management platform.
The platform has eight modules, underpinned by powerful automated workflow tools and with interactive dashboards that provide real time management information: Compliance Monitoring; Regulatory Change Manager; Compliance Registers; Attestations; Governance; Compliance Advice; SM&CR; and FileChecker.
Use cases and benefitsMy Compliance Centre has all the tools a firm regulated for financial services needs in a single, shared technology application. Having everything in one place brings clarity to their compliance management and gives their compliance team, senior managers and Board the confidence that they have everything under control.
1. Reduces non-compliance risk - assign, track, report and evidence scheduled activities, ad-hoc tasks, regulatory changes and remedial actions in real time.
2. Offers a single source of truth - find the information needed, when it's needed, without any fuss or version control confusion.
3. Saves time, and therefore money –produce management reports and get a picture of compliance status in a fraction of the time.
Business modelOur revenue model has two key elements. Firstly, SaaS pricing with monthly subscription fees based on the client’s number of employees and within specific size bands. This provides cost effective and predictable pricing for companies of all size and enables easy scaling for multi-company groups. Secondly, an implementation set up fee that reflects the scale and complexity of the support needed, for example data import.
The askWe primarily want to connect with the owners, senior leaders and compliance and risk teams from businesses that are regulated for financial services. This includes asset managers, wealth managers, investment and fund managers, international and challenger banks, traditional stockbroking firms, and insurance companies and intermediaries, We would, also, like to explore how we can help GRC consultancies deliver low cost, high value execution of managed services contracts to their regulated clients.
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CEO: Ben MasonFounded: 2020Employees: 19Funding: BootstrappedHQ: London, UK
My Compliance Centre provides regulated financial institutions with an integrated platform to manage their core compliance activities.
https://mycompliancecentre.com/
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PwC | Growth Builders
Novastone Media
“CEO: Douglas OrrFounded: 2014Employees: 35 Funding: £7MHQ: London & Belfast, UK
Bringing customer centricity back to financial services, allowing relationship managers and client service teams to chat directly to clients using personalised secure messaging.
Overview
Novastone is a messaging solution that is designed to enable instant messaging communication externally (B2B & B2C) and internally within regulated industries, including Financial Services. Our unique patented architecture and integrations into 3rd party instant messengers such as WhatsApp & WeChat establish Novastone as the ideal tool to drive increased client engagement, speed-up workflow automation & ensure all client conversations are fully compliant within their regulated sector.
Our platform empowers organisations to drive towards their sustainability and environmental targets by reducing paper forms, moving more processes into biometrically authenticated forms via IM chats resulting in reduced email traffic and productivity gains.The Novastone solution can be entirely delivered and managed by a customer's own tech teams via a Novastone installation on your own AWS Cloud.
Use cases and benefits
Finance: Staff users within an organisation can reach out to their clients using a branded web version of the Novastone app which would be delivered to clients either using a branded version of the Novastone mobile app or using a popular instant messaging service such as WhatsApp or WeChat. Integrated forms and documents can be delivered to clients via this method instantly and securely, additionally actions such as transactions, authorisations or signatures can be completed with built in biometric authentication. Leveraging these features, organisations can begin to transform their paper or call processes into online chats, that save time, money and paper waste.
Foreign Exchange Transaction: For example, a transaction is requested by the client, the relationship manager adds an FX expert into the conversation and the transaction is completed and authorised via the client using their biometrics on their device. With Novastone the process is instant and can be integrated into core systems to enact the transaction right away automatically.
Investment Advice: Using Novastone secure messaging, the relationship manager verifies the investment fits the client's risk profile. With Novastone the process is instant and can be integrated into core systems to enact the transaction automatically.
Business model
Novastone licenses its solution with customers using a licence fee per active user per month model. Professional services cover any installations, changes and core system integrations. Add ons are available for malware protection, data loss protection and quantum secure encryption services.
The ask
We would like to meet with individuals at C-Suite level, Digital Transformation teams, Heads of Relationship Management and CISO from global Investment Management Firms & Advisors, and multinational FS corporations.
www.novastonemedia.com
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PwC | Growth Builders
Opus Nebula
Overview
Reporting as a Service provides wealth managers with a world-class reporting solution without the costly overhead of managing, maintaining and developing the reporting system themselves.
The “as a service” delivery model significantly shortens the elapsed time to market, as well as reducing the ongoing costs and risks. Onboarding is typically completed in 6-8 weeks and, once set-up, investment firms manage and control their reports and the production process using our automated “best practice” workflows and suite of user dashboards. Commentary and content can then be added to produce client packs and fund reports to their precise layout, content and branding.
Reporting as a Service is cloud-based, secure, resilient, and available 24 x 7 for your teams to produce your reports for your clients, at whatever scale you require.
Use cases and benefits
“Edinburgh Partners are able to continue to provide bespoke and personalised reporting to our clients, utilising systems and processes that are insensitive to volume and future proofed.” (Jonathan Mundy, Head of Projects)
“We have very demanding reporting requirements and implementation timeframes. Opus Nebula helped us to achieve these and enabled LCIV to automate its client reporting, reduce reporting times and mitigate process risk.” (Brian Lee, COO, LGPS London CIV)
“Working with Opus Nebula is the first time I have ever seen a client reporting project delivered on time and to budget.” (RPMI Railpen, CEO)
“We saved over 80% of costs by utilising the Opus Nebula Reporting as a Service solution against an in-house build.” (CTO, CCLA)
Business model
Opus Nebula operates with fixed set-up costs for onboarding clients to our solution. Once onboarded, we operate a pay-per-use charging model for report production, with discounts for higher volumes. Our clients only pay for the reports they produce, allowing clients of any size to benefit from Reporting as a Service. All completed reports are securely stored within the document library along with the complete production audit trail.
The ask
We would like to connect with COOs, Heads of Operations, Reporting & Marketing and Client Service/Experience teams from Asset Managers, Wealth Managers and Asset Servicers, wanting to improve their client communications and investor reporting.
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CEO: Andrew SherlockFounded: 2014Employees: 8Funding: £100KHQ: London, UK
Opus Nebula has developed the latest generation of client reporting solutions for the investment management industry.
www.opus-nebula.com
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PwC | Growth Builders
Tiller Technologies
Overview
Tiller offers a collection of digital tools and services, created to help wealth managers improve their client proposition. Tiller's technology platform, WealthXcel, is a seamless series of client-facing modules that can be joined together to create best-in-class wealth management experiences.
Modules can include automated onboarding, attitude-to-risk, product selection (including risk management), online portals and on-demand reporting.
Create the best client experiences for your clients. Go fully digital or blend in-person processes to fit your company's needs.
Use cases and benefits
TAM uses WealthXcel 'Construct' to enhance its insight and understanding of client portfolios they manage for institutions and HNWIs. Performing thousands of risk portfolio suitability checks in minutes, Construct gives the investment team at TAM extensive detailed information on the status of portfolios in real-time.
Having such capabilities helps them ensure they are achieving the best results for clients.
Tiller is working in partnership with Mattioli Woods to develop and implement digital solutions through its WealthXcel platform, across the client experience from the moment of first contact and onboarding (including client risk profiling), right through to ongoing client reporting and interaction via a digital portal.
Business model
Tiller generates all its revenue from creating, installing and running its software solution, WealthXcel. Creating bespoke additions to its existing ‘out-of-the-box’ software generates a one-off fee, as does the installation. However, the licence fee, support and maintenance are obviously recurrent revenues. Recurring revenues are budgeted to be in excess of 80% of overall revenues.
The ask
We would like to meet with COOs, CMOs, Risk & Compliance teams, Heads of Operations, Client Services and Marketing from multinational Wealth Managers, Investment Managers, Asset Managers and Financial Services Firms.“
CCO: Jonathan WautonFounded: 2019Employees: 20Funding: £15.1MHQ: Jersey, Channel Islands
Providing better outcomes for wealth managers and their clients with digital tools and services.
https://www.tillertech.com/
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PwC | Growth Builders
Facilitated collaboration with tech scale-ups with proven products
Iterative approach so costs are kept to a minimum and we do the heavy lifting
Unleash entrepreneurial talent of your employees and engage the business
Proven use cases to roll out in your business
Rapidly test new technologies with minimised risk
Curated scale-ups based on defined challenges and strategically aligned
About GrowthBuilders
GrowthBuilders supports startups and scale-ups through hands-on business insight, connections to new opportunities and a network of expertise and experience, to grow lasting ventures, quicker. We believe collaboration is key to innovation, so we also work with corporates to more effectively work with scale-ups, having been on both sides.
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Startup/Corporate InnovationWe power the PwC Scale Programmes, have worked with over 430 scale-ups across 15 sectors and helped big brands harness the full potential of working with exciting new technologies. If you are interested to find out more then get in touch!
growthbulders.io
This publication has been prepared for general guidance on matters of interest only, and does not constitute professional advice. You should not act upon the information contained in this publication without obtaining specific professional advice. No representation or warranty (express or implied) is given as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this publication, and, to the extent permitted by law, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, its members, employees and agents do not accept or assume any liability, responsibility or duty of care for any consequences of you or anyone else acting, or refraining to act, in reliance on the information contained in this publication or for any decision based on it.
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2020-11-24_RITM4167052
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Freddie Thomas
Scale WealthTech LeadPwC Click for moreProgramme Director
PwC
In collaboration with:
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James Howell Will Conner
Programme SponsorPwC
Max Heal
Innovation & [email protected]