Financial advisers who are worried about fighting off the online threat from robo-advisers comfort themselves with the notion that no digital financial planning platform will ever replace a human relationship.
But as the pace of technological change speeds up in the advisory industry, even those human interactions are increasingly moving online.
Enter
Wealthbase, a new web and mobile application that connects advisers to consumers using algorithms that make matches based on expertise, location and availability. Wealthbase uses contextual links, the stock in trade of content marketers, to lead consumers from the website articles that they are reading to a live question-and-answer session with advisers.
For example, a worried mom who is reading about college costs on a personal-finance website can click on a link within the article that brings her to a Wealthbase Q&A box offering to connect her to an adviser. She types her question on her tablet keyboard, the question pings an adviser via a mobile alert, and the mom and adviser then engage in a conversation online, over the phone or in a video chat.
Introduced at the T3 Enterprise technology conference in Chicago on Tuesday, Wealthbase has received $1.5 million in seed-round funding from venture capitalists and angel investors, many of them in the hedge fund world, according to John Rourke, chief executive of Gotham Tech Labs Inc., the one-and-a-half-year-old firm behind Wealthbase's creation.
The platform is in beta testing by about 50 advisers affiliated with independent broker-dealers.
“Digitize or die,” said Mr. Rourke, a serial entrepreneur whose previous startup, a customer relationship management platform for small businesses called Bantam Live, was acquired in 2011 for $15 million in cash by online marketing company Constant Contact.
“Robo-advisers are great services, but it's not true financial advice,” he said. “Web forms and pie charts can only take you so far in your financial future.”
In the first quarter next year, Gotham Tech Labs will introduce both Wealthbase and a related CRM and lead management tool called
Wealthbox to the entire adviser community.
Mr. Rourke described Wealthbox as a “simple, purpose-built CRM for financial advisers” that integrates with social networks such as LinkedIn.
Wealthbase is divided into four components:
1. The Wealthbase Q&A Exchange, for consumers to connect with advisers.
2. Live Pages for Advisor, which shows adviser profiles and lets advisers engage online with consumers in a compliant fashion.
3. Real-time chat widgets, which advisers can place on their websites and blogs to go live with consumers.
4. Wealthbox, which also operates as a stand-alone CRM and lead management tool.
Tim Welsh, a certified financial planner and president of wealth management consultant Nexus Strategy, was on hand at T3 when Wealthbase made its presentation. He questions whether Wealthbase can go the distance, considering that there are formidable competitors such as the Financial Planning Association's “Find a Planner” site for consumers, as well as established CRMs Junxure and Redtail, which introduced a big-data adviser analytics tool at T3.
“It sounds like Gotham Tech Labs is brand new in the industry, which is always a challenge. What financial advisers are looking for is nuanced, and if you don't have that core knowledge, it's tough to get started,” Mr. Welsh said.
“Wealthbase looks very slick and new and cloud this and cloud that, but there are other proven models out there like Junxure and Redtail,” he said.
“That's what these guys are up against, and they're backed by venture capitalists. Will they have the patience for Wealthbase to establish itself?” Mr. Welsh asked.
Gotham Tech Labs has plans to introduce a consumer-facing website next year. In addition, the firm has plans to license its Wealthbase enterprise edition to broker-dealers and investment firms to use on a private-label or co-branded basis.
