The problem

Financial advisers globally are facing increasing cost pressures due to the lack of tools available to produce efficient, accurate and timely financial advice, as well as growing regulatory pressures.

Financial advisers use an average of 5-to-7 disconnected systems, and the process inefficiencies and data errors limit them to service on average 100 clients each. With the next generations coming into wealth and looking to take control of their finances, finding cost effective, digital and available services has become a challenge. Advisers in all businesses in the UK take 5 times longer to produce an annual review for their clients, due to missing data and valuations, manual collation of information and reporting. Not only is the cost ultimately passed down to the customer, the advice firm is left without records or systems, with which they can automatically monitor client and asset changes, for effective servicing. 

Not only do data issues impact the customer, they erode the value of the retiring financial adviser and prolongs the exit opportunity and acquisition process with consolidators spending six months or more in diligence discussions due to the lack of accurate management information. As the industry consolidates (with 29% of financial advisors expected to retire within the next five years), an efficient transition to protect the client is more important than ever.

The rise of automated advice services (AKA ‘robo-advice’) has been slower than expected, leaving an underserved market of individuals desperate for advice. With markets less predictable and a growing need for multi-asset diversification strategies, individuals look to be serviced by a human rather than Robo or DIY solutions. The persistent financial adviser market has the opportunity, but are in need of better technology and data practices to help them capitalise. 

The solution

Woven Advice is revolutionising the financial advice industry by building a comprehensive data infrastructure and visualisation engine. Their solution provides financial advice professionals and wealth managers with an integrated data dashboard, rich in visually engaging management information and user-friendly business support tools.

Woven integrates with all existing software and platforms currently utilised by advisers, aggregating and consolidating data through a custom translation layer. This enables a unified view of management information across systems, addressing the current data fragmentation issue. Woven also plans to offer premium features that automate data cleaning, benchmark against peers, and deliver insightful visualisations to empower financial advisers to become more efficient, grow their practice, and increase their bottom line.

By establishing a strong foundation with reliable data, Woven aims to expand its capabilities and deliver AI led data-driven insights to help provide exceptional service ultimately automating the advice experience. This opens doors for an ecosystem of other providers and products, and innovative opportunities for the advice community to tackle the ever growing advice gap. Woven Advice’s goal is to automate 80% of the process, bring down the cost of advice and ultimately increase the number of individuals an adviser can service.

The team

Nicky Sevel (CEO)

With a background in wealth advising and product development, Nicky brings deep domain expertise and a customer-centric approach to the team with 10 years of industry consultancy in financial planning migrations, implementations, training and solutions design specialising in Iress Xplan. Other recent roles include Head of Advisory Products at global fund data provider FE Fundinfo and Head of Product Operations at CoInvestor. She’s also previously founded Neeshe, helping democratise access to financial advice for women. 

Tim Ronayne (CTO)

Tim's technical prowess and experience in building integrations for the IFA industry make him instrumental in developing Woven Advice's robust platform. He spent a decade as the founding CTO at AnyVan, helping scale it to a business with 5m users across the UK. 

What Woven Advice wants to get out of the programme

• Despite operating in a traditionally driven vertical, we’re keen to maintain an innovative mindset. With Founders Factory, we will look to its proven track record in fostering disruptive startups, to nurture this frame of mind. We aim to consistently challenge the status quo in the financial advisory industry, and being around serial entrepreneurs, innovators and operators will help produce the culture we look to uphold.

• We aim to reach as many financial advisers as possible. Through the Fintech Accelerator program, we expect to receive practical, hands-on support from Founders Factory to help us scale our operations effectively and efficiently. Their expertise in helping startups scale will be crucial in expanding our customer base, enhancing our platform's capabilities, and ultimately, making quality financial advice more accessible.

• Founder’s Factory’s network and strategic introductions have been invaluable to Woven Advice. Their established relationships with large organisations and influential individuals have served as a crucial springboard for us, enabling us to effectively test, iterate, and build our platform. Their support has been instrumental in our journey to transform the financial advice industry.