Early last year, high-flying online venture LearnVest Planning said it planned to have
So where are they all?
The firm's most recent filing with the SEC, dated Nov. 19, reports just 24 employees, 20 of whom are planners. And despite repeated calls and emails to the firm -- including one email directly to founder Alexa von Tobel -- LearnVest hasn't responded with any more recent hiring updates.
(Update Feb. 18: LearnVest's spokeswoman now says that she intended her reference to "100 planning employees" to include other workers in addition to the planners themselves. Although the ADV form has not been updated, she says the firm now has 70 additional employees, none of whom are planners.)
The LearnVest website currently shows a
RECENT FUNDING ROUND
Back in July, LearnVest announced that it had closed on a
American Express announced in October that LearnVest would be providing content to Serve.com, its prepaid card service, which is intended for people who have little access to traditional banking services.
Public documents do show the firm is growing rapidly. A 2012 SEC filing reported eight employees and 200 clients. The most recent filing shows 2,500 clients.
And many planning firms have reported that a
But the online planning space has proved challenging to some of its competitors, with one prominent player calling it quits last year after failing to meet projections.
The largest independent broker-dealer in the country,
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