Wealthfront

Wealthfront provides automated advisory and investment management services and mainly targets the millennial segment. The company’s automated financial planning tool, known as Path, provides answers to around 10,000 common financial planning questions. It’s designed to advise clients on how to meet their various financial goals (such as early retirements, college savings, financing long holidays, etc.). In addition to its investment offering, Wealthfront also offers banking products such as checking accounts, high-yield savings accounts, and personal loans, which it introduced in 2019. In March 2023 , the company introduced trading on full and fractional shares with zero commission, targeted towards young professionals. Nearly five months later , the company launched 45 new stock collections based on investment themes, such as AI adopter, GenAI, and large-cap and high dividend payers.

In May 2024, Wealthfront launched Automated Bond Ladder, a new offering that allows investors to invest in US treasuries. In June 2023 , Wealthfront launched its Automated Bond Portfolio with a 5.48% blended 30-day SEC yield. The Automated Bond Portfolio offering uses a diversified mix of treasury and corporate bond ETFs and aims to provide a better yield than savings accounts with less risk than investing in equities. In July 2021, the company introduced cryptocurrency investment options through investment trusts provided by the digital currency investment manager Grayscale. As part of the offering, the company will enable customers to invest up to 10% of their investment portfolios in bitcoin and ethereum through the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), respectively. The cryptocurrency offering complements the company’s ETF investment products which specialize in investments in novel industries such as cannabis, self-driving cars, and FinTechs.

Wealthfront charges a fee of 0.25% and has no minimum investment requirements.

In January 2022, UBS announced plans to acquire Wealthfront for a sum of USD 1.4 billion. The planned acquisition by UBS was part of its growth and expansion strategy to strengthen its presence and reach in the US, particularly among younger demographics that make up the mass affluent segment. However, the deal failed to go through in the second half of 2022.

Key customers and partnerships

As of November 2023, Wealthfront reported surpassing USD 50 billion in assets under management with more than 700,000 clients. The company also stated that it is on track to achieve revenue growth of 140% for 2023.