00:00Let's talk about, I mean, this is a pretty big valuation bump.
00:02I mean, it's more than double, I think, double the last funding round that you have.
00:05So I guess that's a testament to the growth.
00:07But I was looking at the growth.
00:08You said yourself you're growing 37% organically.
00:11Organically.
00:12So why do you need this?
00:13Well, it's a great question.
00:14You know, there's really three trends that we're seeing right now in the market that we're playing into from a
00:19strategy standpoint.
00:20Number one is that the fintech industry is consolidating.
00:23And when you see that kind of consolidation, M&A opportunities are coming towards us.
00:28So one was to take our already strong balance sheet, add additional capital, and then be very proactive on the
00:36M&A side.
00:37Second reason is that we've been very much on our front foot with AI and investing in AI, both at
00:42the firm level but also the platform level,
00:45really enhancing the user experience for the advisors and the asset managers and product providers on our platform.
00:51So we want to be able to continue to invest in our AI journey, keep improving the platform, improve productivity
00:57of the firm.
00:58But the other reason is actually quite interesting.
01:02We've been watching private companies stay private much longer.
01:06Actually, you and I have talked about this before.
01:08I've had some great early investors that have been almost the entire 17-year journey with us.
01:14We wanted to be able to give some liquidity.
01:16So we reached out to NASDAQ private markets.
01:18They ran an institutional tender offer.
01:21And so part of the proceeds were actually our ability to provide liquidity to 10-year shareholders.
01:28Liquidity, it is.
01:29I do want to go back because you tripped me up a little bit when you talked about M&A.
01:33And even in the release, kind of the language seemed to suggest that's where you were going.
01:37Are these deals that you already have ready to go or you're just out there on a mission now to
01:42search and find something?
01:43We do have a few in the near term that we're looking at.
01:45Would you like to tell me?
01:46We can't share that with you right now.
01:48But let me tell you the categories that they're in.
01:50So as a platform with 2,500 wealth firms actively using the platform, 65,000 advisors, there's many more things
01:59we can do with those firms.
02:01They're asking us, what else can you do?
02:03So one area that we're looking at is extending our platform capabilities to potentially offer different products on the platform
02:10or service the advisors in different ways.
02:12So that's like one category.
02:14Another category might be just enhancing our technology capabilities.
02:18And we can build and we have built everything so far, but maybe it's time to speed up, acquire, and
02:25get going.
02:26So that's deal language.
02:27I am also curious just about the type of offerings that you have.
02:30And I was taking a look.
02:31You have a big summit coming up in the fall.
02:33And I was looking at, you have a lot of sports, media, entertainment, sports franchises, defense tech.
02:40Is this kind of where the puck is going in the alternative space right now?
02:43Look, I think the puck is going.
02:44You know, our platform has just about every strategy available on the platform.
02:50I think for the summit, which I'm very happy you're attending, it'll be topics like that that are quite interesting
02:57for advisors.
02:58What we're trying to do is build community and really deliver content that can help advisors inform how they invest.
03:04And when you think about sports investing, media, aerospace, defense, technology, AI, these are the major driving trends right now.
03:12On our platform, it's fascinating.
03:15We've seen this year alone, because as a platform, we get to observe where the capital is going.
03:20This year alone, there's been three strategies that have really outperformed on our platform in terms of attracting capital from
03:29the advisor community.
03:30Number one has been hard assets, real assets, infrastructure, core real estate.
03:36That's up over 100% year over year on investor interest between now and 2005.
03:43Second area is tax-aware strategies.
03:46So 1031 exchange funds and the tax-loss harvesting strategies up over 100% year over year.
03:53And then we have defined structured notes, yield notes, that are up close to 125% this year.
04:01I do want to ask you about the tech side of your business, because obviously when you see a company,
04:06a fund like this to come in,
04:08which is very software-focused, taking a seat on the board, and seeing the comments in the press release by
04:14David Breach,
04:15this seems to be viewed from their seat a lot more through the lens of your technology capabilities,
04:21rather than just the idea of what an investment platform is.
04:25Are they the one and the same?
04:26I think that we selected Vista, and Vista selected us, because they are just so deep in the software, technology,
04:35and AI world.
04:36And even before this announcement, we've been working with Vista on them bringing resources to the table to help us
04:43think through our AI journey.
04:45They've been an unbelievably added value and strategic friend and now a shareholder, and that's why we wanted David to
04:51join the board.
04:52So, with regards to the AI capability that you have, that you use, where does that stand right now, and
04:59what do you want that maybe you don't necessarily have right now?
05:02I think that today, most would say that we're very much further than others in our journey.
05:10We recently announced a partnership with Anthropic.
05:14We've launched something called Casey, which is our agentic AI agent, where any advisor can now just query a question.
05:21Things that used to take hours and weeks are now taking seconds and minutes.
05:26So, we are seeing the impact at the platform level.
05:29And then, of course, at the company level, AI is being incorporated across the entire firm and creating efficiency.
05:35We think from a cost-based standpoint, an expense-based standpoint, we will spend as much money as we spent
05:42last year, maybe less, and continue to grow the company at north of 35% to 40%.
05:47And long-term, though, is Casey just sort of like the invisible backbone of all this, or is the goal
05:54to be something a little bit more visible, or does it not matter to you?
05:58Well, you know, it doesn't matter to us.
06:00You know, there's a lot of conversations about our platform being headless, meaning that it can plug into another system,
06:05and the user can use the core system, and then you're going into case and not even knowing.
06:10Yeah.
06:10We're okay with that.
06:11You're okay with that.
06:11Yeah.
06:12Some of your competitors are taking a different time.
06:15Some of them are going B to C.
06:16Yeah.
06:17We're, again, a B to B, the B being the financial advisor.
06:21We're very happy being the core infrastructure layer for the wealth tech industry on alts.
06:28This is not a young company.
06:30I think it was 17 years and running right now, so there's going to be a lot of questions, particularly
06:34after this funding round, as to whether you remain a closely held company, whether this is going to go public
06:41anytime soon.
06:42Do you have ambitions to do that?
06:44You know, ambitions are to keep your head down, keep building the business.
06:49Yeah.
06:49However, I would say in the last 6 to 12 months with the IPO market changing and opening, there have
06:56been discussions, not in the near term, but that the IPO is definitely an option for us.
07:01And final question.
07:02This is really just kind of on the state of everything that's been going on in the alts space.
07:05I mean, as you know, a lot of hand-wringing over the last year or so.
07:08But we're actually now starting to kind of see the smoke clear.
07:11And there was wreckage, but not necessarily the pileup that everyone, I think, thought we had.
07:16Do things look healthy to you right now in the alts space?
07:19You know, they do.
07:21You know, we look kind of beyond the story and actually at the facts and the data.
07:25And we speak to, of course, all the great asset managers that are on our platform.
07:29And we don't see any signs of any car crashes, or they don't, I should say.
Comments