The French start-up Finary has created a comprehensive aggregator so that investors can get the full picture when it comes to tracking their wealth. It means that Finary it is not restricted to bank accounts. It can include a large number of assets, from real estate to cryptocurrencies to stocks.
Adding data was just the first step. Finary wants to build a private bank from scratch with a different set of fundamental principles.
In the private banking industry, there is a misalignment between clients and banks. Instead of generating revenue from customers directly, banks try to sell financial products and generate revenue from those products. They call it financial advice, but it's just a shady sales process.
“Because we are independent, we can tell you everything. Existing players only suggest solutions that generate commissions for them,” said co-founder and CEO Mounir Laggoune.
Finary believes that the next generation of people with capital will seek a different experience. They will want to see the information directly and make informed decisions on their own. In other words, just like you no longer call your banker to transfer money to a family member, Finary wants to empower people with the right tools and information.
Some existing investors lead the round in Finary, namely Speedinvest and Y Combinator. Investors such as Qonto founders Steve Anavi and Alexandre Prot, as well as Bitpanda's Eric Demuth, are also participating.
But that's not all. Finary he also believes that building a new private bank, and that the most active clients should be able to own a stake in the startup. The startup will soon launch an equity crowdfunding campaign.
In practical terms, people will be able to invest as little as €10 to buy shares or fractions of a share through a soon-to-launch equity crowdfunding platform in France. "We have allocated €500.000 but we agree with some 'overfunding'," said Laggoune.
Finary has released a mobile app for iOS and Android. This application has become a simple way to access the service, since users tend to consult their account Finary nine times a week on average, that is, more than once a day.
The startup has also added more integrations and can now track 10,000 different equity exchanges in France, the US, Canada, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. For example, you can connect multiple bank accounts, stock trading accounts, add your real estate, gold bullion, the public address of your cryptocurrency wallet, etc.
Finary is using various api based aggregators to track accounts, like Plaid y BudgetInsight. It also runs bitcoin and Ethereum nodes to track wallet addresses.
Overall, the startup has attracted 30.000 users and tracks €10.000 billion worth of assets, meaning that, on average, users track more than €300.000 each. Currently, the company makes money through a premium subscription that costs €10 per month.
And this is where the product gets interesting. In addition to adding data, Finary can make recommendations. For example, the service helps uncover hidden fees in mutual funds. Users can also generate performance reports and learn how they might diversify their investments across different geographic allocations, sectors, and risk profiles.
With today's funding round, the company plans to fully cover financial institutions in the UK, Germany and Switzerland. The company is also working on additional features, such as a family mode, a better way to track RSUs (or BSPCE in France), and the ability to separate personal wealth from professional wealth.
Finary will hire 25 more people thanks to the different rounds, the last Serie A of 9 million euros. There are many potential product expansions in the future. For example, you could buy cryptocurrencies directly from the platform. The service could also help with tax returns. By the end of 2022, Finary expects to multiply its user base tenfold and reach 300.000 users.
