Technoloty News : Wealth services in europe to get automated by flanks with more capital

Flanks, a company that has developed an API for automated wealth management services, secured Series A capital of $8 million to democratize wealth management in Europe.

Earlybird Venture Capital led this round, and was joined by existing investors JME Ventures & 4Founders Capital. Scalapay cofounder Raffaele Terrene and Upvest CEO and co-founder Martin Kassing participated in the round as angels.

The Barcelona-based firm was founded in 2019, by software engineers Joaquim De la Cruz and Sergi Láo, and Alvaro Morales, a private banking executive. Their vision was digitize global wealth data from custodians, and gather it into one API to allow clients to have a complete picture of their portfolio in real-time and make better investment decisions.

Flanks, which has clients ranging from large financial institutions, family offices, and independent financial advisors to independent financial advisors is taking advantage of the regulatory shift in Europe that is happening around open banking. Recent proposed legislation, such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive III (MiFID III), focuses on open finance in order to establish rights and responsibilities to manage financial data beyond payment accounts.

De la Cruz explains that, before open banking, there was no way to share financial information with a third-party or for financial advisors know the global asset allocations of their clients. The company developed its “open wealth software” to address this problem.

De la Cruz told TechCrunch that “open wealth” is a movement within the industry that empowers clients to share their information with third parties. “Financial advisers can connect their clients’ information with just two clicks, and then get all the wealth data — a 360-degree look — of the client from a single source.

Flanks is active in Spain, France, and eight other countries. It connects to more than 300 international banks and aggregates over half a million monthly investment portfolios. In the last year, it has doubled its client base to 100 clients and focused on larger clients that could potentially put Flanks in front millions of end users.

In the last 12 months, the company’s revenue grew by more than four times.

The Series A funding is expected to help the team expand their international locations and boost their product pipeline. Flanks developed products based on the data last year. Financial advisors can use and analyze data using a no-code system. If a client changed banks, the advisor could make that change in just two clicks.

De la Cruz said, “This is the most exciting opportunity for data in many years. You can now mix your data with AI to create a variety of vertical products.” “We want end-to-end cases to be built now, and we are developing a case with OpenAI that connects the data so that the financial advisor can really work with the data in order to help clients grow the portfolio.”

European startups are on track to raise $51B in this year, a 39% drop from 2022