Ethic Inc., the tech-driven asset management platform that powers sustainable investment portfolios, has closed $13 million in Series A funding.
Existing investor Nyca Partners led the round and was joined by institutional and sustainable investors that include Fidelity Investments and Sound Ventures, a venture capital firm founded by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary. The round also brought follow-on investments from existing investors including ThirdStream Partners, Urban Innovation Fund and Kapor Capital.
Sustainable, responsible and/or impact investing strategies grew 38 percent — to roughly $12 trillion — from 2016 to 2018, according to the U.S. Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investing. Investors are increasingly seeking products that enable them to align their portfolios with their unique values. In this regard, pooled investment vehicles, such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), typically fall short. Ethic addresses this need by enabling the creation of personalized investment portfolios at a very large scale.
“That’s what we think is the most striking attribute of Ethic: We believe it is pioneering the future of equities investing,” said Hans Morris, managing partner of Nyca Partners. “Every investor can create an individual portfolio customized to the environmental, social and governance factors that matter to them most. The effects can be enormous as Ethic is effectively powering a personalized ETF for everyone. We are very excited about Ethic’s vision and management team.”
Founded in 2015, Ethic empowers wealth advisers to engage with their clients on the issues important to them through personalized portfolio construction, transparent impact reporting and integrated education. By partnering with Ethic, wealth advisers are better positioned to acquire and retain clients, as demonstrated by the rapid growth in Ethic’s assets under management.
The company closed on $6.8 million in funding in October 2018; this latest round will support its continued growth in the registered investment adviser (RIA) and wealth management space through expansion of its engineering, client service and business development teams.
“The last big shift in wealth management was from active to passive investing. We are now in the midst of the next revolution in wealth management, characterized by a shift to personalized investing, which we believe will disrupt the traditional model of financial product creation,” said Doug Scott, CEO and co-founder at Ethic.
