Envestnet Makes $35M ‘Surge’ Investment In Tamarac

Fintech firm Envestnet said today that it was making a $35 million “surge” investment in Tamarac, the wealth management platform for RIAs, more than doubling its previous investment in the technology.

Envestment said the investment is meant to put AI more directly into advisor workflows. The firm said the investment is part of its five-year plan to devote $1 billion to research and development.

In addition to Tamarac, Envestnet operates the largest advisor platform for separately managed accounts (SMAs) and MoneyGuide Pro, one of the largest financial planning programs. All in all, it has more than 100,000 advisors using its various platforms and programs, providing it with a wealth of data to build AI appilcations that few other fintech companies possess.

The investment in Tamarac is necessary partly because Envestnet’s leading competitors in the portfolio management space—SS&C Black Diamond, Orion and Addepar—are also in the midst of major AI-driven upgrades. 

Envestnet said that the time advisors are spending moving back and forth between systems and reconciling data (and making sure its accurate) is costing them time and money and that the problem is being exacerbated by the great wealth transfer set to occur. 

“According to Cerulli, an estimated $124 trillion in wealth is projected to change hands by 2048, landing on systems built for a different generation’s accounts,” Envestnet said in a press release. “And within existing books, complexity is compounding: more held-away assets, more alternatives, more tax nuance. Most advisory technology was built for one point on that spectrum. Ask it to stretch, and it can either break or demand heroic manual effort.

“Envestnet’s Adaptive WealthTech platform serves an advisor’s business, who are serving more households, supporting more sophisticated client relationships, managing more held-away assets, incorporating more alternative investments, and navigating more tax, planning, and tackling more extensive reporting needs.”

As part of the effort to update Tamarac, Envestnet said it is introducing “Report Studio,” a drag-and-drop reporting tool that helps advisors maintain more control over client reporting.

“Report Studio replaces a legacy experience in which holdings and performance data often lived in separate reports, configurations varied by report type, and setup could require navigating dense settings menus without visual feedback. In its place, Report Studio gives advisors drag-and-drop control over tables, charts, and KPI modules on the page, built on a more unified reporting foundation. No exports. No manual rebuilds. No last-minute scramble before a client meeting,” Envestnet said.